By JENNIFER AMATO
Staff Writer
SAYREVILLE — U.S. Army Sgt. Heriberto Vidro finally made it home from serving overseas during Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The Sayreville resident was at Fort Monmouth when he saw a woman give a command to a black Labrador, who immediately obeyed her.
Vidro turned to his wife at the time and recounted the action, which she did not believe.
The woman then clarified that the Lab was a service dog, and that Vidro, who was suffering from multiple, extensive injuries from his time in the military, should contact NEADS (National Education for Assistance Dog Services).
One night during the three years Vidro waited to be granted a dog, he had a dream of a yellow Labrador waking him up. His son heard him talking in his sleep, yelling the name Houdini. Vidro was looking around confused, saying he felt a dog licking his face.
Two weeks later, he had another dream that a dog was laying on his chest, kissing him all over his face.
At the time, Vidro had gotten involved with the Wounded Warrior Project and was attending a photo shoot in Jacksonville, Florida. He had spoken with a woman during each conversation about securing a service dog, so when a man called him to say the dog was ready, “I thought someone was pulling my leg.”
Vidro was in such disbelief because the trainer of the dog he had waited three years to meet said his new partner was — a yellow Labrador named Houdini.
“I started crying,” Vidro said of that fateful day in 2009.
Six years prior, Vidro had been stationed in Kuwait and Iraq from November 2002 to November 2003.
One day in March 2003 would change the rest of his life.
“All I know is there was an explosion. We were driving fuel trucks for jet fuel … and got caught in an ambush and had to abandon the fuel trucks to help with the firefight. As we were running across the Highway of Death [Highway 80 that runs from Kuwait City into Iraq] something exploded. It threw me back and I hit the guardrail. When I opened my eyes, I saw I was alive, not in heaven, and I took off running from the adrenaline,” Vidro recalled.
The next morning his back was tight and black and blue, but he thought, “Don’t worry. I’ll carry on.”
“We were in war so we were told to suck it up,” Vidro said.
Three months later, Vidro said his urine was cherry red like “hydraulic fluid” because of blood. He said medics diagnosed him with severe dehydration. However, when he returned stateside, he was diagnosed with kidney issues.
Then, Vidro said one day in 2004, he was driving home from work when all of a sudden he was paralyzed from the waist down. He said he had to use the handbrakes to slow down his Jeep because he could not stop the truck. He eventually made it home and went to the emergency room at the VA hospital.
He said the first doctor set up an IV and wanted to send him home after 30 minutes. Refusing to leave without an explanation, Vidro requested another doctor who realized Vidro had no feeling in his feet or legs. He sent him for an MRI, and Vidro wound up staying in the hospital for two and a half years.
Doctors realized his S-1 and S-2 discs in his spinal cord had ruptured and moved inward toward his spine, cutting off the nerves to both sides of his legs. He could not walk, had no balance, lost his speech abilities, lost his hearing and had trouble with his memory.
He had to go through injections, physical therapy and other measures before being approved for spinal surgery, though he said a decade later he is “always at a 6-7 pain level.”
“I locked myself in my room. I kept away from my wife. I kept away from my kids,” he said, remembering how he set up black curtains in his room, where he had no phone, no TV, no Internet. He let his hair and beard grow out and weighed 290 pounds. He was “doped up” on morphine and would only sleep.
Vidro suffered another near-fatal incident when he felt what he thought was a muscle pull and got short of breath going up the stairs. He said Houdini was trying to block him at the bottom of the stairs. However, he continued on and basically passed out. He said Houdini retrieved the phone, as he was trained to do, but Vidro could not speak. So, the veteran was only saved because Houdini was barking loud enough so that his son heard him when he returned home.
Vidro was eventually diagnosed with a blood clot that had ruptured in his lungs, even though the most recent of his 11 surgeries had been two years prior.
“Houdini was upset with me because I didn’t listen to him and I almost kicked the bucket,” Vidro said.
Houdini was allowed to visit Vidro in the intensive care unit and for two hours climbed into bed with him, kissing him by his ear. The next day, when Vidro’s son was ready to go to the hospital, Houdini was laying by the door, waiting to go too.
“Before I got him, I didn’t know something was wrong with me because all of my injuries were internal,” Vidro said. “Houdini is incredible. He’s done a lot for me. … We help each other incredibly.”
Vidro still has a broken collarbone and rotator cuff, his left hand is disfigured, he has trouble with balance and is legally deaf in his right ear.
Unfortunately, Houdini encountered health issues that somewhat mirrored Vidro’s. He got hit by a car, had cancerous tumors removed and recently lost an eye to glaucoma.
Yet Houdini has also enjoyed many perks over the years. Vidro said he loves to go kayaking, skiing and to the gun range. He only fell short of scuba diving because the dry suit was not small enough.
Houdini is also a celebrity in his own right. The police at the VA hospital in Lyons know him so well that if someone else is walking him, they get interrogated, according to Vidro. The dog is invited twice a year to Yankee Stadium, has an autographed picture with former New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez, goes to New Jersey Devils games and “is friends” with dozens of celebrities.
“He’s gotten around since I got him,” Vidro said, joking that if he were to get a new service dog to replace Houdini, Houdini would train the dog wrong so that Houdini would be able to continue going everywhere with Vidro.
“He might have been a human in his prior life,” Vidro said.
Vidro said he is grateful for the pro bono services of Dr. Joseph Spinazzola of the Animal Hospital of Sayreville in South Amboy, who has treated Houdini with veterinary services since 2009.
“He’s more than family, not only the way he treats me, but the way he treats Houdini and the way he treats my friend who took her dog Gunner,” Vidro said of Spinazzola.
Recently, Gunner and Houdini went to see Spinazzola together, with Houdini offering “emotional support,” according to Vidro.
The 112-pound German shepherd happened to be nervous that day, so Spinazzola got down on the floor for the exam, but Houdini instead nudged him away, according to Vidro. Vidro said Houdini put his paw on top of Gunner’s head — right where scabs developed that were the reason for the doctor’s visit. Houdini then put his paws around Gunner’s shoulder.
“We call him ‘Dr. Houdini,’” Vidro said. “He can actually tell when people are sick and people are hurting.
“He worries about everybody’s illness other than his own.”
To learn more about Houdini, visit Houdini Vidro’s Facebook page.
Contact Jennifer Amato at [email protected].