We all take extra care when walking around our sleeping pets, making sure that we don't step on their limbs or tail.
But how often do we think of the consequences on our own bodies if we trip over them?
If you've thought about it before, you might think that a short fall won't do much damage, but you would be surprised.
Bexx Hunt, a mom of a little boy, was nearly paralyzed after tumbling over her Golden Labrador when she got up in the night to go to the bathroom.
"It was just something you would never expect."
In late September, Hunt not only tripped over her dog, but also fell all the way down the stairs.
Her partner, Neil Morby, couldn't hear her calling for help, and so she managed to get back up the stairs and into bed.
She thought she would be fine when she woke up in the morning, even though she took a huge chunk of the wall out after the sudden fall.
But when morning arrived, "that's where the nightmare started."
"I had no idea how badly I'd injured myself, it must have been the shock or the adrenaline that left me able to get back on my feet and back to bed," she said, adding that when she awoke, she noticed that she couldn't move her head.
"It was like having a dead leg but it was my whole head. I used my hands to move it to the side and heard a massive crunch, it was terrifying."
Morby quickly called paramedics, where Hunt later learned that she had broken her C2 vertebrae.
"I fractured my C2 vertebrae and apparently if it had been number 3, 4 or 5, I would have been paralyzed," Hunt said.
She added that she's "incredibly lucky," and hopes that her halo brace will fuse her neck back so that she won't need any further surgery.
"It's just a bit of a long road to recovery while I build the muscles back up in my neck and the bone heals," she said.
Bexx is still recovering from her injuries, and hopes to raise money for the East of England Ambulance Service for all their help.
[H/T: Fox News]
