Molly’s Fight For Survival Real life
Molly’s owners’ sensible thinking plus the skills of their local vet saved the life of their young dog after a freak accident
Shortly after moving into a new home in Derbyshire earlier this year, 17-month-old black Labrador Molly had a horrific accident during a woodland walk.
“My partner Ben and I had never been to that particular spot before,” explains Molly’s owner Amy Gaunt. “Molly’s favourite thing in the world is her ball. We threw it for her down a hill and she chased after it with her usual gusto.
But then we heard a terrible squeal. The sound was horrific, and we knew straight away that something was dreadfully wrong. We raced to her and we couldn’t believe what we saw – she had run straight into a small branch that was sticking up from the ground and it had impaled her right through the middle of her chest!
“Molly calmed down a lot when we reached her, and for us, after the initial panic of seeing her, the adrenalin kicked in. Ben and I had grown up with dogs and knew we needed to leave the stick in – we knew that trying to remove it would prove fatal – and get her to a vet immediately. So, with the branch still sticking out of her, we raced to get her to our car and to the vet.
By sheer coincidence, the previous day we had been walking around to familiarise ourselves with the area when we’d seen Scarsdale Vets’ Stapenhill practice and noted it as our nearest vet. So that’s where we headed. Molly was quite calm in the car, although obviously in a lot of pain.”
“There was a member of staff talking to a customer in the car park when we pulled up and I wound down the window and shouted, “Help us!” They were brilliant; they helped us to get Molly out the car and they took her straight in.”
Stapenhill Veterinary Surgeon Jen Lees and the team immediately swung into action and administered pain relief via an IV line and assessed Molly as best they could while she was conscious and calm. X-rays showed that over half of the one metre stick had gone through her diaphragm
and into her abdomen. She was immediately transferred to Scarsdale’s referral hospital Pride Veterinary Centre for specialist treatment.
There, Mark Longley, European Specialist in Small Animal Surgery, and the surgical team shortened the stick to minimise the potential for further trauma and conducted a CT scan before taking Molly into theatre.
Amazingly, the stick had missed all of Molly’s major organs, blood vessels and arteries. Mark and his team operated on her for two hours, a complex job with the additional concern of infection via contamination, as the stick was covered in bark, dirt and Molly’s fur.
“She was in professional hands, and we knew she would be well cared for, but after handing her to the vet, I broke down and I found the rest of the day horrendous. Molly is one of the family, we don’t have children and she is like our baby. She was in surgery for a long time and even though the veterinary team kept us updated as much as they could, it was horrible, not knowing how things would be. When we finally heard around 7:30pm that she had made it through surgery and everything was looking good, it was an incredible relief.”
Equally incredibly, just one month later, following post-surgical monitoring, medication, and plenty of check-up visits, Molly was happily back doing what she loves best – running around her local parks and garden. “We are so relieved that she recovered amazingly well, and so quickly. She’s a young dog and very fit and that de efinitely helped in he er recovery,” says Amy. A “Now, you wouldn’t w even know an nything was wrong with w her, bless her. It all a seems surreal now n because she’s back b to her normal self. s We love having her h back and home with w us.
“We are so grateful g to everyone from f the Scarsdale team who treated Molly. They were amazing, incredible from the moment we arrived, onwards. They saved her life.”
“We’re so grateful to everyone on the veterinary team – they saved her life”