Who's a clever boy then? Grandmother says parrot saves her life by waking her when she stops breathing in her sleep

A grandmother claims her parrot has saved her life after she developed a life-threatening illness that stops her breathing while asleep.

Barbara Smith-Schafer, 62, says the bird wakes her up by frantically flapping his wings and gnawing her shoulder.

Even more astonishingly, Dominic, a seven-year-old African Grey, is also bi-lingual, and can speak English and German, she says.

Mrs Smith-Schafer, from Skegness, Lincolnshire, suffers from sleep apnoea, an illness that stops her breathing when she is asleep.

It can put a strain on the heart and cause serious health conditions such as stroke.

The pensioner first noticed something was wrong in 2009, when she brought Dominic indoors after he was being bullied by another of her seven pet parrots.

Sleep apnoea is characterised by loud and heavy snoring, which she says alerted Dominic to the problem.

She told MailOnline: 'I wondered why he kept sitting on my shoulder and pecking at me.

'At first I was quite annoyed - he kept waking me up and I found it embarrassing as he would also mimic my snoring.

'But he must have realised something was wrong and was trying to keep me awake.'

'He has kept me alive. He really is one in a million.'

And that's not the end of Dominic's talents. The exotic bird also speaks German after learning some words from her German-born husband Bernhard - although this has led to some embarrassing moments.

'My husband would sometimes say 'oh scheisse' when he was on the computer, and Dominic started saying it.

'If visitors heard him I would pretend he was talking about how nice it was outside.'

Dominic, who could live to 60, has also helped Barbara tackle her fear of birds.

'The other parrots are really my husbands,' the mother-of-three said

'I will feed them if I have to but otherwise I don't go near them. But with Dominic it is different. He liked me straight away because I was a woman.

'He sits on my shoulder during meal times and really likes peas and sweetcorn. He will be getting an extra special Christmas box this year, he really is a darling.'

Barbara was diagnosed with sleep apnoea in 2009 after suffering from nocturnal incontinence.

'I was getting up three to four times a night having wet myself

'I thought that I had something wrong with my bladder and at first doctors were looking at Botox, but then one American doctor said it could be sleep apnoea, which I had never heard of before.'

A visit to an overnight clinic confirmed that Mrs Smith-Schafer did have the condition. Obstructive Sleep Apnoea (OSA) is a potentially life-threatening sleep disorder. It causes a person's airway to collapse during sleep, obstructing breathing for pauses of 10 seconds or more.

This can occur several times in the night and leaves sufferers exhausted as it jolts them out of deep sleep. It also puts a strain on the heart and can lead to serious conditions including stroke.

It also explains why the former canteen-worker had suffered with extreme tiredness for so long. She had found herself drifting off even when she was standing up and pitched headfirst into the coffee table. .

As a result she had broken her nose five times along with suffering a fractured shoulder and other bumps and bruises.

Mrs Smith-Schafer has now been prescribed a Philips CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) machine, which provides a gentle flow of air pressure through her nose using a mask. The air pressure prevents airway collapse, allowing her to breathe freely during sleep.

'For the first time in a long time, I feel like I can see light at the end of the tunnel, and have got some of my mobility back after years of feeling too tired to get off the couch,' she said.

She now finds she doesn't nod off so often during the day, which means Dominic can take a step back from guard duty.

'I’m grateful to Dominic for keeping an eye on me, but I certainly won’t miss the painful alarm calls or his mocking my snoring,' she said.

Mr Michael Oko, Consultant ENT Surgeon and Sleep Apnoea Specialist at Pilgrim Hospital, Lincolnshire, who diagnosed Mrs Smith-Schafer, said: 'All too often, chronic snoring is viewed as a harmless phenomenon, albeit an extremely annoying one for the snorer’s bed-partner.

'But for up to one in five who do snore, the cause will be OSA, which if left untreated can lead to significant cardiovascular damage and hypoxia of the brain.

'Fortunately, for those of us without the helping hand of a uniquely talented parrot, there are some highly effective treatments, including lifestyle and behaviour changes, CPAP therapy, mandibular advancement devices and surgery.

'If you experience heavy snoring and suffer significant fatigue and tiredness, it’s important that you report it to your doctor immediately.'

Sleep apnoea has traditionally been viewed as a male disease, but a recent study has suggested that among women aged 20-44, up to one quarter now suffer from it, a figure which rises to more than half in women aged between 45 and 54, and 75 per cent in women aged between 55 and 70.

'More women should go and get checked,' Mrs Smith-Schafer said.

'I thought it was my bladder but Dominic knew otherwise. I wish I had his brains.'