Braveheart 2009
Braveheart winner 2009 - Max Barr
Here is Max’s amazing story and the reason for him becoming the Okeford Veterinary Centre’s Braveheart winner for 2009:
At 8.30am on Sunday the 20th of September the vet on call, Eleanor received an emergency telephone call from the police requesting their attendance at a serious road traffic collision on the A30. A police escort was sent to accompany the vet and nurse on call. A black Labrador, Max had been travelling in the car and was seriously injured.
Upon arrival at the scene, some of the firemen from the two crews attending were, with Max trying to keep him calm and prevent further injury. Max’s owner was air lifted to hospital while the vet and our head nurse, Sarah, placed Max onto to intra venous fluids to stabilise his condition and prevent his shock from deteriorating. He was also given strong pain relief. Max had a large gaping wound behind his right shoulder and another covering his left elbow. Once the pain relief and fluids had been administered Max was stretchered to our pet ambulance. At this point we did not know the identity of the dog but our head nurse thought she recognised him as Max Barr once back at the surgery a microchip confirmed his identity.
Max was kept in overnight on intravenous fluids, pain relief and antibiotics. His wounds were bandaged and would be sutured the following day. Due to Max being in shock an anaesthetic was not advised.
The operations on his legs went well and a drain was placed in his right leg to allow fluid to drain from the wound. Upon recovery Max was vomiting, this continued for the next two days. The vet decided to x-ray Max’s abdomen and endoscope his oesophagus and stomach to look for any blockages or the cause of the vomiting. Neither of these revealed any abnormalities. Max was sent home to see if the vomiting was caused by stress from being separated from his owner during such a traumatic accident.
Unfortunately the vomited persisted, the decision was made to perform an exploratory laporotomy allowing further investigation into the reason for the vomiting. Once inside the abdomen the problem became clear, the greater omentum had become tightly wrapped around the small intestines, causing them to bunch up into a fist size mass. The vet managed to unravel this with ease. It is suspected this occurred when Max was thrown around the car during the accident.
Max was sent home that evening for a stress free recovery. The following day he was offered a very small amount of watered down food, no vomiting occurred after this and Max was again allowed home with medication and a feeding regime.
With love from his owner and the dedication of the team here Max slowly began to improve, his condition throughout had caused great concern and everyone was so pleased when he turned his first corner on his road to recovery.
Max and his owner are aiding each other during their recovery and improving greatly each day.
Max will be awarded with the Katie Bater memorial cup and an engraved picture frame.
