Labrador “lucky to be alive” after being impaled by stick in Burton
A black Labrador is “lucky be alive” after being impaled by a 1-metre-long stick while out on a walk with her owners.
Molly, who’s 17-month-old, was injured while chasing her ball down a wooded hill near her home in Burton-on-Trent.
She inadvertently ran onto a tree branch which went into her chest.
Molly’s owners rushed her to Scarsdale Vets’ Stapenhill Practice for emergency treatment but was instead referred to one of the largest veterinary referral hospitals in Europe, at Pride Park in Derby.
A team of surgeons operated on Molly for 2 hours, and say “unbelievably,” the stick had missed all of Molly’s major organs, blood vessels and arteries, and had travelled underneath her lungs and liver, pushing them out of the way.
Mark Longley, a European Specialist in Small Animal Surgery, said: “Molly is an incredibly lucky dog and her recovery was nothing short of remarkable - the next day you’d think nothing had happened! She is lucky to be alive – if the stick had moved just a few centimetres either way or hit any of her vital organs or major blood vessels, it’s unlikely she would have made it to Pride in the first place.”
Now, just over a month after the accident Molly’s wounds have almost healed and there is no sign of any infection or adverse effects from the trauma.
Vets say she is happy, healthy and back running around her local parks and garden with her owners.
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