This week: A vet's accident
As a veterinarian my daily routine usually involves a continuous barrage of sick and injured animals, with several routine vaccinations dispersed in between. We are well equipped to deal with animals of the furry and feathery kind but occasionally we have other, unexpected human emergencies to deal with, some with hilarious and embarrassing results.
I remember about six years ago, at about 3am, I was the emergency veterinarian alone on duty. The nurse who was supposed to be on duty with me had a family emergency of her own and had to leave early. Murphy's Law is alive and well in the veterinary world - the moment my nurse left I had an emergency crash through my doors.
It was a client who lived on The Peak and had the rare privilege in Hong Kong of having a garden of his own. He doesn't do the gardening himself but has a gardener. With a garden come pests and a common garden pest is the humble brown snail. The gardener had used snail bait containing a compound called metaldehyde, and a small dose can be lethal. It causes a myriad symptoms, not the least of which are seizures, muscle tremors, panting, fever, increased heart rate and respiratory failure.
The quicker the dog is presented after ingesting the snail bait the better its chances are. The way we usually deal with the problem is to induce vomiting and start the animal on fluids, to help flush out the poisons in the blood and keep the kidneys working. Often we'll feed activated charcoal, similar to the stuff that people use in fish tank filters to absorb toxins. For muscle tremors we use valium as a relaxant.
But this dog was presented with respiratory failure as well as all of the above. I managed to stabilise its breathing and decided to place what we call a nasal-oxygen tube. This provides oxygen directly into the nostril. The tube is pushed into the nostril then fixed to the dog's head with superglue.