Cat miraculously saves its owner dying from a heart attack

A hero cat saved his owner’s life by pounding his paws on her chest to wake her up after she suffered a heart attack.

Sam Felstead, 42, was asleep when she was woken by her seven-year-old cat Billy at 4.30am. She realised she was unable to move her body and had a shooting pain down her right side so called out to her mum Karen for help.

Sam, a receptionist at Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham, was rushed to hospital by Karen in the early hours of August 8.

Doctors told her she had suffered a heart attack in her sleep and Sam believes Billy’s swift actions saved her life. She said she had felt fine when she went to bed, adding that she'd "even been out with the dogs and didn't feel ill or have any pains".

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Things took a turn in the early hours of the morning.

"Suddenly I woke up in the early hours covered in sweat and couldn’t move," she said. "Billy was on my chest and was meowing loudly in my ear hole.

"He was really meowing. He doesn’t do that normally, he sleeps all day and all night, that’s his life.

"He wouldn’t leave me."

SWNS

She said that Billy likes to be left alone and is certainly "not a lap cat".

"I'm just glad he woke me up. Who knows if I would have got up without him, it could’ve been worse for me.”

Sam and her mum, who she lives with, phoned 999 but were told she would have to wait two hours for an ambulance to arrive. Karen drove Sam to the Queen’s Medical Centre where doctors said she had suffered a mild heart attack.

Sam added: "I was wet through with sweat and had really bad back pain and my right side felt really heavy and strange. I couldn’t move it. I couldn’t stand up either and it was very dizzy when I got up.

"We rang 999 but they said there would a two-hour wait for an ambulance so my mum took me. We went off to hospital.

"They sorted me after a while and they sent over to city hospital.

"They found one of my arteries was blocked which was caused the heart attack. They looked after me ever so well, so that was quite nice, I have a lot of medication to take for life and I have to take it easy for six weeks."

SWNS

Sam spent three days in the hospital before being discharged and was reunited with her beloved Billy, a British short-hair.

She added: “When I came home at first he wasn’t bothered, he completely ignored me.

“He's just the same now, I just try to give me a bit more love.

“I’m grateful towards him as I didn't know if I'd have woken up.

“My alarm was for another two hours so who knows if I would have woken up.

“The doctors said it was a good job I got to hospital in time.

"I do think he saved my life and so does everybody else around me."

Cat behaviour expert Lucy Hoile said Billy may have picked up on physiological changes in Sam.

She said: "It could be that the fact he jumped on her and was meowing was a sign of his anxiety.

"I do believe he probably did save her life, because that's what enabled her to get medical help, but I wouldn't go down the route of saying he did it on purpose.

"It was him reacting to the situation."

Credit: SWNS.

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