Trapped man kept alive by his dog

A man who spent six days trapped in his bathtub has been kept alive by his dog.

Retired spacecraft engineer Bruce Ashworth, 55, slipped while taking a shower at his home in Highlands Ranch, Colorado.

Mr Ashworth, who has multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair, could not reach the safety handles to rescue himself.

His specially-trained dog, Libby, retrieved his phone for him, but it was not charged.

He managed to reach a cleaning spray bottle, rinse it out and use it to get water.

As the days stretched on, he would drift in and out of consciousness. Libby would lick his face to get his attention and slap her paws on the floor to wake him up, Mr Ashworth said.

"I actually spent a lot of time hallucinating. I wasn't aware of what reality was," he said.

By about the sixth day, Mr Ashworth worried he would die.

He was eventually found by Julie Johnson, whose job is to give the elderly and disabled rides, to where they need to go.