Spectrum Health Lakeland has a new staff member, but this one is a little different. Hiro is a two-year-old German shepherd from Slovakia who is the second K9 working at the hospital. He’s paired with handler Chris Aungst, who retired from the Berrien County Sheriff’s Department after nearly 30 years and joined the hospital’s security team.
“K9s always been a passion of mine,” Aungst tells WSJM News. “I was fortunate enough to get on the K9 unit here.”
Hiro joined Inez on the K9 unit at Spectrum Health Lakeland, after Inez was brought in in 2018 thanks to the Lakeland Health Foundations. Security director Rich Matthews says while both dogs work with the security detail, they do much more. He says there’s a lot to the healing process for a patient.
“It’s not just physical. It’s not just spiritual,” says Matthews. “But you introduce a K9 into that care also, and you can see that patient’s pain level, their pain threshold start to change.”
K9 Inez has been involved in some police work, as she and handler Bruce Modigell were the first on the scene at the Benton Harbor-St. Joseph YMCA last fall when a bomb threat was called in.
Hospital security departments nationwide over the past few years have begun to involve K9 teams as a cost-effective way to help diffuse tense situations, detect weapons, and deescalate potentially violent situations as well.
Check back to WSJM.com and on our Facebook page Wednesday morning for the video story that goes along with the introduction of Hiro.
