Family Dog Destroys Elf on the Shelf, But Hospital Staff Saves 7-Year-Old Girl’s Christmas

Surgeons at an Orlando hospital helped save Christmas for one little girl following a disastrous encounter between an Elf on the Shelf and a family dog. Elf on the Shelf Sam, who in 2017 resided at the home of then-7-year-old Aubrie Thelen, sustained serious injuries that required the help of medical personnel at Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children after his mischievous ways led to him being attacked by Aubrie’s dog, Zoey.

The rush to save Sam’s life began early in the morning back in 2017 when Aubrie’s mother, Jennifer Thelen, woke to the sound of her daughter shrieking. Thelen told PEOPLE that Aubrie “came running in my bedroom and I was like, ‘What in the world is going on?’” It was then that Thelen learned her daughter discovered the family dog had attacked Sam.

“We had a wreath on the inside of our front door, it was fairly high and Zoey hadn’t messed with it, so I tucked Sam on the top portion of the wreath and went to bed. But sometime in the middle of the night – Zoey got ahold of the elf,” Thelen recalled.

Sam suffered an amputated arm, as well as lacerations to his face, other arm and legs. Thelen said she couldn’t get her daughter, who believed Sam the Elf was watching over her and reporting back to Santa, to calm down, “and the first thing I thought to say was, ‘We’ll get him fixed, mommy will take him to the hospital.’” Thelen, the nursing operations manager at Orlando’s Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children, rushed Sam to the hospital, where Ashley Gibson, a paramedic on the critical care transport team who works with both of Aubrie’s parents, quickly jumped into action. Donning a surgical mask, Gibson grabbed a sewing kit and sewed Sam back together, documenting the procedure in a video that was later shared to Facebook.

“The team used expired medical products to work on the elf, and even used a special pair of Santa’s magic gloves. Aubrie knew that the elf could not be touched but Jenn told her that the ‘magic gloves’ would allow the team to work on Sam,” the Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children wrote in the post. “One of our ER team members, Ashley, carefully put Sam back together again and bandaged his injuries all up. She even sprinkled some Christmas magic (glitter) on Sam when she was done.”

The emergency surgery was a success, and Sam was able to return to the Thelen household later that night after spending time in recovery. Thelen said they were really trying to keep the joy and spirit of Christmas alive and keep her believing as long as possible – just to let her have that spark of excitement,” adding that her daughter’s “jaw drooped, she was laughing… She was all smiles, she was super excited,” when Sam returned home.