Typical Emergency Scenario

7 pm: Animal Aid receives a call alerting us that a cow is sick on the road an hour away from the hospital. We ask the caller what its condition is. Usually the caller doesn’t really know—only sees that the cow can’t get up, or she hasn’t moved out of the road for two days, or that she has an injury of some sort. We attempt to get the exact location of the animal, and take it from there.

We use our mobile phone to call staff, who, by 7 pm, have usually gone home. (Most of our surgeons live close to the hospital.)

If at all possible, we try to treat animals on the street and leave them where we find them, returning for follow-up treatment and evaluation as needed.

These neighborhoods are, after all, the animals' homes, and if they are forced to leave, both the travel and the hospital itself cause a stressful smorgasbord of new sounds, smells, and the painful sensation of feeling "homesick."

If the emergency case is too serious to leave on the street, we must bring it to the Animal Aid Hospital for treatment, although we do not have space for elephants. We are guided in our treatment of elephants by experts from Help in Suffering, who make their expertise available 24 hours a day.


Dr. Saket treats an abscess on this baby elephant which was caused by incorrect saddling.

Especially during the rainy season, maggots (the larva of flies) infest wounds and can turn simple sores into nightmares. Maggot wounds can be lethal if un-treated, but with careful and consistent wound-dressing, most cases, especially if detected early, are successful.

One of our educational missions is to encourage people to not use plastic, and to improve public sanitation so that plastic garbage some day will not line the streets and the village pathways.

 

Rescuing a cow from the city.


Picking up a cow injured in a road accident.


Raju Bandar has been with us for almost two years. He was burned by an electric wire and though he is now fine and healthy, he is permanently blind. He happily lives with other monkey companions in a large cage donated by Pia and Klaus Cipikoff Jacobson (Denmark).

Dr. Saket treats a bull on the spot.