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Life-Saving Labs
By Regan Michelle White
Steven Goslee, 52, public works director of Jamestown, RI
has always been an avid pheasant hunter - making it a point to hit the woods
with his Labs, Jack and Lily most every day. Their routine changed the
afternoon of Nov. 9, 2004, when Goslee suffered a massive stroke in the Arcadia
woods leaving him paralyzed and stranded on a 15-degree evening. Between the
dedicated smarts of his Labs and the quick thinking of area Game Warden John
Gingerella, Goslee was afforded the opportunity for many more hunting trips to
come.
Yellow Labs Lily, 5 ½, and Jack, 2 ½, are actually mother
and son. When asked where he got Lily, Goslee answered with a laugh, “I grew
her myself. I’ve been raising Labs for a long time. They’re very easy to
handle, they can do a lot of things and they make good pets when it’s not bird
season,” he said. “They stay with you,” he added. This was never more true for
Goslee than on the evening of Nov. 9, 2004.
It was a Tuesday and Goslee, Jack and Lily headed out to
pheasant hunt in their usual haunt, the Great Swamp Management Area. They
hunted there until around noon when Goslee decided to try the Arcardia area, a
half hour away. The Midway section of Arcadia that Goslee and his Labs decided
to try out is marked by cultivated fields and meadows, punctuated with patches
of woods. “We were up in Arcadia for an hour or so and I was getting ready to
head back in,” Goslee said. “I looked down at my left foot and it didn’t move.
I collapsed onto the wet leaves. I had no idea what was happening.”
Goslee would find out later at Rhode Island Hospital that he
had suffered a massive stroke caused by a tear in his carotid artery that
caused the artery to split. According to Goslee the tear caused the artery to
blow up like a balloon and shut off blood supply. All he knew Tuesday evening
was that he couldn’t move and it was getting dark and cold. He remembers the
sun setting. He was dressed only in a game coat over a T-shirt and sweat shirt
with a pair of jeans. His hat had fallen off during his fall. “I opened my coat
up and told the dogs to go to bed,” Goslee said. Jack slept on top of him, Lily
in his jacket. A literal two-dog night.
The temperature dropped to 15 degrees that evening – the coldest
night that autumn season had seen. “It was cold, cold, cold,” Goslee said. The
huddled warmth of his dogs was enough to keep him going. “If I had been able to
walk, the truck was only 10 minutes away, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even
crawl,” he said. “I was just laying there. I figured someone would find me.”
Goslee’s unwavering faith was well-founded. After sunrise he
heard people nearby and told Jack to run and find help. Jack found the nearby
hunter who phoned the DEM dispatcher in Providence. The dispatcher rang up John
Gingerella, a game warden for the Department of Environmental Management. It
would be Gingerella who would put the pieces together. He had grown acquainted
with Goslee and his Labs during their hunting trips to the Great Swamp. Finding
Goslee’s white Ford SUV with frost on the windows, Gingerella began his search.
Recognizing the loose dog as Jack, Gingerella knew something was wrong –
Goslee’s Labs would never leave him.
Gingerella organized a grid-search of the area and quickly
happened upon Goslee mid-Wednesday morning. “I was shaking like a leaf (from
the cold),” Goslee said. Gingerella and search staff were able to coerce Jack
and Lily into dog crates while emergency medical technicians tended to raising
Goslee’s core body temperature. He was transferred to Rhode Island Hospital
where he stayed for two months and was an out-patient until August 2005.
How is Goslee faring now? Miraculously well by all accounts.
“I’m doing pretty good,” he said. “I don’t have as much strength in my left
shoulder and arm (as I used to). I couldn’t move my hands or fingers for three
months (after the stroke), and my balance isn’t quite how it used to be.”
Through the extended hospital staying and all of the therapy, Goslee has kept a
level-headed, hopeful approach. “I just kept plugging along. You have to learn how
to do everything with one arm. There’s a lot of therapy to try to get stuff
moving again and to try to learn how to do things again,” he said. “You just
gotta keep pushing forward. It’s not that depressing because I’ve made so much
progress. When you can see some progress it gives you motivation to keep
chugging along.”
While he no longer has the energy he used to, Goslee has
pretty much returned to his routine and is able to walk, work and hunt.
Something that has changed is his routine of now calling to tell people where
he is going. “I check in and check out when I’m going someplace now,” he said.
“I always tell somebody where I’m going now and then I do a follow up call when
I get home.”
And there to greet him are Lily, Jack and Jack’s
grandmother, Rose, 11. “They pretty much all just like to hang out,” Goslee
said. “They eat regular dog food and dog biscuits and anything they can get to
on the counter. That’s probably their favorite food,” he said with a laugh.
With the year anniversary of his stroke upon him, Goslee has
much to be thankful for. “John (Gingerella) was really helpful. He had the
rescue people there and he was just really great helping to make arrangements
for the dogs while I was at the hospital,” he said. “I can’t say enough about
him taking care of stuff. He had a lot on the ball. Most people would have
said, ‘It’s just another dog running around out here,’ and wouldn’t have put it
together that it was Jackie or that something was wrong.”
As for Jack and Lily, there is no doubt in Goslee’s mind
that they saved his life. “Definitely,” he said. “I would have frozen to death
out there (without them).”
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