Man’s Best Friend: He’s Just What Doctor Ordered

A dog walked into a hospital room 14 months ago, sprawled onto a bed with a boy who had been in a coma for three months and licked his face.

Doctors did nothing to stop the German shepherd. As part of an animal-assisted therapy program, Rex was doing what he was supposed to do.

A week later, doctors at the Institute for Rehabilitation and Research said, Neil Stortz came out of the coma. And his first memory was of his “soggy” encounter with Rex.

“We did religion, metaphysics, you name it,” his mother, Amelia Stortz, said recently. “But Rex seems to be what did it.”

Rex was brought into Neil’s room after a car accident that killed Neil’s 5-year-old sister and seriously injured his mother.

Neil, now 10, is recovering from his brain stem injury, is back in his fourth-grade class and beginning to walk. His speech is slowed but clear, and his bright eyes and smiling face are evidence his cognitive abilities are sharp.

Neil and Rex took part in a dog show put on by participants in the animal-assisted therapy program.

Doctors say Rex really did not awaken Neil, but certainly provided motivation for him to recover.

“It’s not a miracle,” said Dr. Catherine Bontke, director of the institute’s brain injury program. “If that was the case, I’d have dogs here 24 hours a day waking people up. The brain has to heal, and it just happened that when Neil met up with the dog, it was time for him to awake.”