THE THIN VET - by Dr Steve Wimberley

THE THIN VET

by: Dr Steve Wimberley

I was a young vet, very wet behind the ears, and hadn’t been at the practice very long. One morning one of our receptionists came to me to say that there was a lady on the phone requesting a house call. However there was a condition – it had to be a thin vet. I had always had the physique of an Ethiopian famine survivor so was not surprised that our receptionist had approached me. I was very intrigued though, so collected the visit bag and set off.

Upon my arrival at the house I was met by a distraught woman. Somewhere in the distance I could hear the wail of a dog in distress. 

“Somehow my dog has got under the house and is trapped. He’s been howling like that all night.” said the woman. She showed me to the side of the house and parted some bushes to reveal a three foot by three foot opening in the foundation wall. The dog had got in there and was trapped somewhere under the floor boards. It then dawned on me. The thin vet was expected to go in there and find the dog and get him out.

I needed time to think so I told the lady I was quickly going home to change my clothes. It didn’t take me long to swap my clothes for the standard sleeveless green overalls worn by large animal vets. I had also come up with some sort of a plan. I hadn’t been in KwaZulu long but did know that there could be black mambas lurking in dark places. I asked the woman’s domestic servant Winnie, if she would be prepared to help me. She was very obliging and to her eternal credit offered to lead the way into the dark. Armed with a torch Winnie crawled into the hole, and I followed. I had placed a syringe full of sedative in my breast pocket and had tied a muzzle to my right fore-arm.

I finally realised why I had to complete two years of military service after I had qualified as a vet. As a “battle ready soldier”, I had been taught how to leopard crawl and this was now coming in very handy. Every now and then Winnie would get a bit far ahead so I would reach out and tap her rather ample behind just to check where she was. I was comforted by the fact that if she had got though so should I. 

We were under the floor boards and trying to move in the direction of the dog. However we kept bumping into walls. Finally it struck us that we still had to go through the “door” to get to the next room. At last we got near the poor dog. He was of medium size and in the dim light appeared to be dark brown to black in colour. On inspection it transpired that the unfortunate creature had got his left back leg caught in a huge electrical cable. He had obviously got very distressed and had twisted round and round to get free. The cable was now wound so tightly around his leg that the paw was badly swollen. Some instinct must have prevented him from trying to chew through the cable as that would most likely have been the end of him.

I was very reluctant to cut the cable for fear of electrocuting us all, so felt the only thing to do was try to unwind the dog. However he was so distressed that he tried to bite me every time I reached out to move him. Luckily I had had the foresight to bring the tranquiliser and muzzle. I managed to retrieve the syringe form my pocket and inject the dog in his rump. We then had to wait about 15 minutes for it to take effect. It was difficult to keep the conversation light hearted and free of four letter words. Eventually the dog got very sleepy and I was able to get the muzzle on. This all took place with us lying on our stomachs.

Working in that very cramped space I started to drag and turn the dog around in a clockwise direction, but after a few turns realised that the cable was getting more twisted. So with some effort I started to turn the dog the other way. It took about 5 rotations before the dog’s leg fell free of the cable.

With a huge sense of relief we started back towards the exit, dragging and pulling the dog as gently as possible.  This was no easy feat but we were so elated to have got the dog free that it didn’t seem difficult at all. As we exited with the dog we were greeted with spontaneous applause by a fairly large crowd of concerned neighbours who had gathered near the opening.

The dog made a rapid recovery and his owner was extremely grateful. I for my part tried to eat four meals a day, and idly wondered if I should do part time work for the fire brigade.

__________________________________________________________________

If you enjoyed this story you can order the full Kindle version of Dr Wimberley's book here Tales of Dr Grumble there are copies available at Westville Veterinary Hospital for R100 all proceeds are donated to animal rescue.