{"id":6639,"date":"2012-04-06T08:36:11","date_gmt":"2012-04-06T16:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/?p=6639"},"modified":"2012-04-06T08:37:17","modified_gmt":"2012-04-06T16:37:17","slug":"hospital-repairs-injured-eagle-wing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/2012\/04\/06\/hospital-repairs-injured-eagle-wing\/","title":{"rendered":"Hospital Repairs Injured Eagle Wing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Eagle\"<\/a>The Small Animal Clinic at the OSU Veterinary Teaching Hospital treats cats and dogs only. But when a national symbol of freedom needs help, it\u2019s hard not to make an exception.<\/p>\n

Last week the Chintimini Wildlife Rehabilitation Center (CWC) north of Corvallis, brought a bald eagle with a badly injured wing to the hospital. Small animal surgeon Dr. Jennifer Warnock consulted with CWC director Jeff Picton on how best to repair the delicate bones. \u201cIt was a nasty, comminuted fracture that could not be anatomically reconstructed,\u201d says Warnock. \u00a0\u201cBird bone is particularly thin and brittle, making implant placement a delicate affair: pins placed in bird bone can easily strip out or further fracture the bone.\u201d\u00a0 The team decided to use a minimally invasive procedure with the C-arm fluoroscope to place a pin and external fixator through tiny incisions. \u201cBy not disturbing the soft tissues we use the principle of biological osteosynthesis to assist in fracture healing,\u201d says Warnock.<\/p>\n

The damaged wing also created challenges for anesthesiologist Dr. Ron Mandsager. \u201cThe avian humerus is pneumatic, meaning it is connected with the respiratory system making the bird lighter for flight and keeping them cool,\u201d says Warnock. This caused air to leak out of the injured wing and Mandsager kept loosing pressure on the anesthetic machine causing it to indicate the bird wasn\u2019t breathing when they could see it taking breaths on the bag.<\/p>\n

The two-hour surgery went well and the eagle came out of anesthesia feisty as ever. In fact, immediately upon waking, he bit Picton and drew blood. \u201cWe were all saying, \u201cOh great, he\u2019s fast! That is a good sign,\u201d laughs Claire Peterson, a third-year veterinary student and regular volunteer at CWC.<\/p>\n

In a couple of weeks, the external fixator on the wing can be removed so that physical therapy can begin. The sooner he can begin using his injured wing, the greater the chance of successful return to function.<\/p>\n

The jury is still out on whether the bald eagle will recover well enough to be released. According to Peterson, he has a better chance of returning to the wild than other raptors. \u201cIf it were a falcon, it would be unlikely,\u201d says Peterson. \u201cThey are the athletes of the bird world. They are hunting ducks and songbirds so they need to be able to fly really well. Eagles can scavenge and they can catch fish. He doesn\u2019t need to be an athlete; he just needs to be able to get along. We\u2019re hoping that it\u2019s enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Small Animal Clinic at the OSU Veterinary Teaching Hospital treats cats and dogs only. But when a national symbol of freedom needs help, it\u2019s hard not to make an exception. Last week the Chintimini Wildlife Rehabilitation Center (CWC) north of Corvallis, brought a bald eagle with a badly injured wing to the hospital. Small […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":911,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3054,2701],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faculty-and-staff","category-veterinary-teaching-hospital"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3DBMX-1J5","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/911"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6639"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6682,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6639\/revisions\/6682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}