Family Dog Wakes Parents of Boy, 17, Who Was Suffering a Stroke: 'He Sensed I Needed Help'

A family dog is being praised for alerting parents that their teenager was suffering a medical emergency.

On August 26, Amanda and Daines Tanner were asleep when they were woken up around 5 a.m. by their 1-year-old border collie, named Axel. The couple initially ignored Axel, assuming he needed to be let outside. However, after the dog’s energetic persistence, Daines got out of bed. 

As Daines went to open the door to let Axel outside, the dog went in the opposite direction, sitting in front of the bedroom door of Amanda’s 17-year-old son Gabriel Silva and refusing to move.

Because of Axel’s persistence, Daines went into the bedroom where he found his stepson slurring his words and unable to move the right side of his body. Gabriel was suffering from a stroke.

“Axel has always been very intuitive. He can tell when something is wrong – like if we are feeling down or stressed – and he does his best to fix the problem,” Gabriel tells PEOPLE. “That morning he must have sensed I needed help so he woke up someone who could help.”

Amanda and Daines rushed Gabriel to the emergency room, where the high school senior was then transferred to Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Medical Center for specialized care from Dr. Sabih Effendi, a neurosurgeon and the hospital’s stroke medical director.

When Gabriel was first seen, he had completely lost the ability to speak and the right side of his body was significantly weak. Effendi performed a cerebral angiogram and discovered that Gabriel had an artery dissection, a tear along the inside lining of an artery, which caused an ischemic stroke. 

The teen was given blood thinners to quickly restore blood flow to his brain. Doctors said that if he hadn't received medical attention when he did, his symptoms would have become permanent and Gabriel would’ve been “unable to be functional in life.”

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Effendi said Axel made a “massive” difference in Gabriel's outcome by alerting the parents.

“Millions of neurons are lost each minute that passes during an ischemic stroke, ultimately impacting speech and movement and could even result in death,” he tells PEOPLE. “Had the family dog not alerted Gabriel’s parents, and had Gabriel’s parents not identified his symptoms as stroke symptoms, the time to treatment could have been severely delayed resulting in a much different outcome for Gabriel.”

“Instead, Gabriel is walking, talking and looking forward to finishing his senior year of high school,” Effendi adds.  

Gabriel spent a week in the hospital under close supervision before he was transferred to TIRR Memorial Hermann. While there, he underwent intense physical, occupational, and speech therapy to restore some of the functions that were lost due to the stroke.

Today, the teen is making progress in outpatient therapy, hoping to return to school and soccer in the coming weeks. “I feel like I was before,” Gabriel told Today.

Meanwhile, Axel has been by Gabriel’s side since the health scare and Amanda told the outlet she wants to get the dog a medal or honor for his collar.

“He’s now tasked with following Gabriel everywhere,” she said. “He’s now sleeping with Gabriel more, and Gabriel’s doors are open so he can go in and out. He’s always been very sensitive to everything and everybody’s emotions at home.”