VETERINARIAN
ACTHA Monthly | September 2015 | 42
By Dr. Mary Beth Hamorski VMD
Mixed Animal Veterinarian/Co-Owner Califon Animal Hospital
Califon, New Jersey
The
Wounds
Part I
Sometimes things look worse than they really are and sometimes minor things turn into disasters. Such is the case in dealing with equine wounds! Even though horses have thick hides, injuries do occur leaving you wondering, "How the heck did they do that?!"
During my 29 years of practice, nothing ceases to amaze me when it comes to injuries. One of my worst cases involved a yearling thoroughbred filly who had gotten in with the colts and made an unsuccessful attempt at jumping the fence. She ended up impaled on the wooden fence post and board. I told the manager, “Do not to attempt to remove the pieces as they might be next to a large blood vessel and she may start to hemorrhage profusely when removed.” Upon my arrival, the filly had managed to lacerate the entire right side of her neck, from throat latch to upper chest!! If the laceration had been on the left side, her esophagus would have been involved making the situation much graver. Armed and ready for a blood bath, the manager pulled on the board as I had hemostats in hand! Thank heavens she had missed both her carotid artery as well as her jugular vein! I went about carefully closing all tissue layers leaving in several drains due to the depth of the wound.
Several drains, 12 packets of sutures and 200+ sutures later, she was back together. Next was making sure she was quiet, to give the area time to heal. By some miracle she healed up nicely and went on to have a stellar career.
There are several lessons to be learned here. Always ask your vet before removing any foreign material from your horse. With advent of cell phones it is easy to text or e-mail several photos from different angles to make a better decision together.
One area of exception I feel is a nail in the sole or frog area as you obviously don't want your horse bearing weight and driving a nail or piece of wire in deeper. In these cases I always have the owner measure exactly where the object went in and at what angle. Sometimes snapping a picture as you remove the object or taking a video clip may help to determine if the joint or navicular bursa was involved.
These cases are commonly known as “Street Nails”, and need to be referred to a hospital for aggressive treatment. Debridement and broad spectrum antibiotics are often needed in these cases. Sometimes a technique called regional limb perfusion is widely accepted, whereby a small butterfly catheter is placed in a vein where the injury is located. A tourniquet is placed above the
Dr. Hamorski and her horse John John