Browsing tag: fracture

One recent morning, in the middle of the snowy weather, it was a real struggle to get to work. The main roads were open and gritted, but the side roads were hazardous with patches of snow and ice. After a difficult journey, I was surprised to find that the nurse was already checking in a patient. A motorist had found a seriously injured fox which had been hit by a car.

He hadn’t seen the accident happen, so he did not know how long the fox had been lying by the road, and we can only hope that no-one was injured in the accident. All the cars in front of him had pulled out round the fox, but he had stopped. On finding the fox was still alive, he picked it up and put it in his boot and brought it to the surgery.

Great care should be used if handling an injured wild animal because, understandably, they are liable to panic and to bite if frightened and in pain, and will not understand that you are trying to help them. In most cases it is better to telephone for advice first from either your local veterinary surgery or the RSPCA. If the animal is to be moved, it is much safer with the right protective clothing and equipment. However, this fox offered no resistance.

We examined the fox and found it was a young adult male which was in reasonable condition before the accident. Unfortunately it was barely conscious and had at least one hip fracture. A more detailed examination and x-rays would be needed to find out what other injuries it had, but as our fox was not yet well enough he was given pain relief by injection and placed in a warm, quiet, kennel in a darkened room.

Unfortunately this particular story does not have a happy ending because our fox died later in the morning. However, I am glad that he was not left to suffer and to freeze slowly to death by the side of the road. If he had survived the initial trauma of the accident, decisions about further treatment would have been made based on what was in his best interests, including whether he could make a successful return to the wild after a period of recovery.

Different veterinary practices may have different policies on the treatment of wildlife. Some may offer treatment in the practice, while others may refer animals to nearby treatment centres such as the RSPCA or other charities, depending on the facilities in the area. Often there are local people known to practices who may take in particular types of wildlife for rehabilitation such as injured birds, hedgehogs, badgers etc. In coastal areas there are specialist charities which deal with injured or stranded dolphins, seals and whales, and with oiled birds.

Some wild animals or birds which appear to be in difficulties may be best left where they are rather than being moved. Fledgling birds in particular are often still under the watchful eye of a parent even if they appear to be abandoned, so if you find one and are not sure what to do, try to get some telephone advice before moving or handling it.

If you are worried that your dog or cat may have been hit by a car, contact your vet or use our Interactive Pet Symptom Guide for advice on what to do next.

Joe the TV vet performs difficult pelvis surgery on a cat.

Cats lead dangerous lives, dodging traffic, fighting over territory and being chased by dogs, so it is not surprising that we vets spend a reasonable proportion of our working lives patching up the results of their adventures. Whether it’s repairing serious damage caused by road traffic accidents, or patching up less severe injuries from bite wounds, cats that have been in the wars certainly keep us vets busy everyday of the week.

Most of the time these injuries are not too severe – cat bites, and bruises and strains from over-energetic leaping and climbing usually heal well and require nothing much more than antibiotics and painkillers to help the cat recover. Sometimes, however, cats are less fortunate and that is when things get much more serious and the outcomes can be less positive. Road traffic accidents are by far and away the main cause of these more serious injuries, and repairing the damage that a tonne of car can do to 5 kilos of fragile cat can be a very involved and difficult process.

Thankfully there are now many highly specialised vets who can offer amazingly hi-tech operations and treatments that can quite literally put broken cats back together. A friend of mine from university, Toby Gemmill, is now an eminent orthopaedic surgeon in Birmingham and I truly believe that provided the pet’s head and chest are in one piece, there’s not much he couldn’t put back together successfully. Using all manner of techniques, including external fixators (metal frames that hold shattered legs back together from the outside rather than the inside), bone grafts and much more, vets like Toby can work wonders on even the most severely injured animals.

There is a problem though, and that’s the age-old issue of money. The state-of-the-art treatments that Toby and other orthopaedic vets carry out are understandably expensive with costs often reaching many thousands of pounds. This puts them out of the reach of many pet owners, unless of course they have pet insurance, leaving them faced with some very difficult decisions – should they try to beg, borrow or steal the money required for a potentially life-saving operation? Or should they simply call it a day and opt to have their pet put to sleep? These are terrible decisions to have to make, and it is one of the reasons why vets like myself, who are general practitioners rather than specialists, end up tackling complex operations that are well outside our comfort zone.

Take Portia the cat underneath the drapes in this picture for example. She was hit by a car and suffered severe injuries to her pelvis and back legs, and required a major orthopaedic operation if she was going to have any chance of surviving. However, her owner had no pet insurance and could not afford to consider visiting a specialist – but she was desperate to try and save her beloved cat, so I offered to try my best and have a go myself.

The operation Portia required was something I have attempted before, but it really is not something I’m that comfortable with, so it was a very long and stressful operation. The end result was pretty good – definitely not as good as if Toby had done the procedure, but a whole lot better than nothing and I think there’s every chance that she will pull through as a result. In fact it’s me that I’m more worried about – I need a stiff drink and a lie down to recover from the stress!

Joe Inglis BVSc MRCVS is the vet for the One Show, This Morning and BBC Breakfast. He runs his own line of natural pet food called Pet’s Kitchen