A routine task for Mari Youngman, Rio Americano’s new biology teacher, took a dangerous turn earlier this week when she fainted in the main office from a sudden drop in blood pressure. Fortunately, help was close at hand.
Youngman recently started bringing her service dog to school, a 3-year-old German Shepherd she and her boyfriend trained themselves to respond to such an emergency. In the office, he alerted other staff and laid across Youngman’s legs to help stabilize her blood pressure.
Hugs was Youngman’s boyfriend’s puppy when the couple had the idea to train him. After 18 months of intense training, he qualified as a service dog who assists Youngman with her heart conditions. Because Youngman has difficulty controlling her heart rate, blood pressure, temperature and stress levels, she can faint or her heart can stop at random.
Among his other skills, Hugs can smell a drop in blood pressure or hear a change in her heart rate.
“He alerts me to anything that might be happening,” Youngman said. “If it ever gets to the point where he needs to start letting other people know, he does what I call the ‘bark alert’ where he barks nonstop to let people know that something’s going on.”
Youngman says Hugs may have saved her life in September when his barking alerted neighbors that she needed medical help.
Aside from alerts, Hugs also lies on Youngman’s legs, a process called compression therapy, when she faints.
“Compression therapy is used for people with cardiac disorders,” Youngman said. “(Hugs) lays on my legs to bring my blood pressure back up, so he adds compression.”
Youngman has orthostatic hypotension, a condition that causes an irregular heartbeat and low blood pressure, and POTS, the common name for postural tachycardia syndrome, a multisystem disorder of the autonomic nervous system. She was diagnosed when she was 12 after she hit her head when she fainted, and she has had a service animal since then.
“My body can’t regulate itself very well,” Youngman said. “It was diagnosed when I was 12 years old and my previous service animal saved my life.”
An intensive 18-month one-on-one dog training for her first service animal certified her to train one on her own.
Whether students can interact with Hugs depends on if he is wearing a vest: if not, they can pet him, but if yes, “act like he doesn’t exist,” Youngman said.
“This is 100% something he’s been trained to handle,” Youngman said. “I did a safety talk with my students.”
Despite her condition, Youngman loves to scuba dive and spend time in the ocean.
Youngman majored in marine biology in Florida and recently moved to California because of her boyfriend’s military position. When she was younger, she had fish and sea stars in a large home saltwater system, sparking her interest in biology. Her classroom features a hamster and a small tortoise.
But the animal she literally could not live without is Hugs.
When her previous service dog passed away last year, “it was like a button was pressed in Hug’s head,” Youngman said. “And pretty much from then on he’s been perfect. He’s been alerting me in times of need. He actually alerted me to an emergency (last month) which saved my life, and he alerts other people to medical emergencies, so he’s an amazing dog.”
.
Watch Rio TV’s interview with Youngman here.
