Polly the dog will be crowned “CPR Hero” for helping save her owner

A golden retriever is being praised as “the first responder” who helped save his owner’s life when he went into cardiac arrest in the middle of the night.

Hannah Cooke, from County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland, was awakened one night last year by the barking of Polly, her and her husband’s four-year-old dog, who, according to the couple, normally sleeps peacefully through the night.

When she turned to her husband sleeping next to her, Hannah found him breathing erratically and then stopped breathing completely, according to the British Heart Foundation, which told the couple’s story ahead of a ceremony on Tuesday in which Hannah and Polly will be crowned “CPR Heroes” for their actions.

“When I heard the noise Adam was making I sat up straight in bed as I previously worked as a carer and realized it was the same noise I heard when people take their last breath,” said Hannah, 33.

She immediately sprang into action, calling an ambulance and performing CPR on her husband until paramedics arrived to take him to the hospital. Along the way, Adam was shocked seven times with a defibrillator before his heart rate returned to normal.

Adam woke up in the hospital six days later and learned that he had been diagnosed with a heart condition called dilated cardiomyopathy, which prevents the heart from effectively pumping blood throughout the body.

After weeks of recovery and a procedure to place an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator in his chest, Adam was finally allowed to return home, where he was reunited with Polly.

“When I left the hospital, I’ll never forget seeing Polly again and knowing how she had intervened that night. I just held her and cried for 20 minutes,” Adam said.

The couple credits Polly with saving Adam’s life by being “on the same page” with him, and they believe she even knew what was going on.

“Polly alerted me, possibly seconds after Adam’s cardiac arrest, she was the first to respond,” Hannah told BHF, a charity that raises awareness of cardiovascular disease and raises money to fund research into treatments and cures. “Thanks to her, I was able to start CPR almost immediately.”

Hannah and Polly were due to receive their ‘CPR Heroes’ honors at the BHF’s Heart Hero Awards ceremony in London on Tuesday night.