7-year-old boy with diabetes owes his life to service dog

Service dogs save lives every day. Just ask 7-year-old Luke, whose service pup, Jedi, used his training to alert Luke's family when danger struck.

Luke, who has type 1 diabetes, has a glucose monitoring system that keeps track of his blood sugar levels, and his family keeps watch in case they become dangerously low. For people with diabetes, a normal blood sugar range is typically between 70 and 120 mg/dL (milligrams per deciliter).

But as Luke and his mother slept last week, Luke's blood sugar started to dip -- and Jedi was quick to take action.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

"Jedi jumped off the bed, then back on again. Though I felt him do this, I didn't wake up," Luke's mother, Dorrie, wrote in a Facebook post. "Then Jedi laid on me. I woke up."

Jedi then bowed, which he is trained to do if Luke's levels are about to dip. 

At first, Dorrie told Jedi to go back to sleep. Then, when "the sleepy fog started to wear off," she realized something was wrong -- Luke's blood sugar had dipped to 57.

Thanks to Jedi's quick alert, Luke was able to take a glucose tablet before his blood sugar dipped any further.

"Luke was laying ... just inches from me, and without Jedi I would have had no idea that he was dropping out of a safe range," Dorrie wrote.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Dorrie is thankful that her post has shed light on life with type 1 diabetes. 

"It's very easy to feel along in a world that doesn't understand all that somebody with type 1 diabetes goes through on a daily basis," she wrote. 

"We need awareness about a disease that most of the world doesn't understand," she added. "We need to help show the world why we so desperately need a cure."

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