The chances are you’ve never heard Orca’s story, but it’s truly amazing.
Here's Orca, with his owner, Cheryl Alexander.
Cheryl Alexander
It causes severe pain and swelling in the skin. Cheryl tells BuzzFeed News:
My life is my life, and I tend not to dwell on things I cannot change. The main initial symptoms are severe, unyielding pain that is inappropriate to the stimulus. For example, a cotton bud may feel like a knife or a slight touch like being thumped. Sometimes no stimulus is necessary. In the early stages this is terrifying and crippling. It is also very difficult to deal with. You know it shouldn't hurt. Mine affects most of my body and is believed to have been triggered by a virus in 1993 that affected my nervous system. But we will never know. It does not matter to me. Later, through lack of use and the progression of the disease, muscles waste, bones thin and warp, skin breaks down.
There are parts of my legs tnat no longer have any sensation, and parts that are confused. I cannot tell the difference between hot and cold for example. My bones break easily. I can still walk, indoors, with crutches, short distances. But I am more disabled walking than in a chair...But my life is my life, and I rather like it, all things considered. The one thing that broke my heart at the time was that it cost me my dream of joining the Royal Navy. Having said that, I would have had a very different life than the one I have now. And I would have never met Orca.
Cheryl Alexander
Cheryl used to walk Orca twice a day and would take him up into some fields via a footpath. She says that by this point: "Orca and I were working well as a team and I was already getting used to trusting him." Cheryl doesn't like asking for help with her disability from humans ("I don't know why. Sometimes I have no choice, but I feel it reminds me of the things I cannot do, and I do not enjoy this feeling.") but it was "different" with Orca.
She says:
So we were walking, far from home. It was a fairly wet day, and quite cold. I was on the section that runs past a deep ditch. It never worried me, as I made this journey daily. But I hit something, a rock I believe, and it turned the wheels of the chair into the ditch, and before I knew it, I was at the bottom. The ditch is steep, and the bank overgrown. It's not a sheer drop, and I think around 12 feet to the bottom. At the bottom was around a foot of water. I was [in it] knees first, still sitting upright in the chair, but the back of the chair [was] horizontal. It was partly supported by the bank, but I was pinned under. The chair weighed almost 300 lbs, so there was no way I was going to get it off.
Orca immediately started to bark, and was trying to edge down the bank to get to me. He knew this was not right. I shouted at him to stop him coming down. I did not think he would get out again. At this point I was more embarrassed than afraid. Orca was crying by now, and there was nobody around. I did not have a mobile phone at this point, but it would have been underwater if I had, so Orca was my only hope. I asked him to "Get help!"
He did not want to go, but with encouragement, he left. Understand that he is trained to do this in a situation that is staged in a training environment, and the person he asks for help always responds. This is important. Orca was gone a fair while, and returned, collarless, wet and with his jacket round his front. I thought he had gone off for a play.
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