Stabbed by an Acacia Tree

Mike McEntire - Texas A&M

Foot in Mouth Disease - Winner

Best Overall Submission - Winner

 

It’s not every day you fall victim to the excruciating schemes of a tree.  But then again, it isn’t every day that you are tasked with saving a Cape Buffalo from drowning.

Last summer I was fortunate enough to spend several weeks in South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province on a study abroad working with some of the most amazing animals on the planet.  After days of lectures on capture techniques and immobilization pharmacology, our team of eager Texas A&M veterinary students were prepared for our first wildlife immobilization on four Cape Buffalo Bulls.

Because the Cape Buffalo of South Africa harbor many of the diseases that could decimate domestic cattle production such as Foot and Mouth Disease, Theileriosis,  Tuberculosis,  and Brucellosis all Cape Buffalo must test negative for these disease before being sold or shipped.  Our goal was to immobilize these four bulls so the State Veterinarians could carry out the testing.

The first two went down easy enough.  But the last two decided they’d go for a little swim before the drugs took their full effect.  That meant we had to run in and hold their heads above water to stop them from drowning. 

There really isn’t a lot of time for thinking in a situation like that.  You just run and that’s exactly what I did.  My extra-long coveralls hadn’t really proven to be too much of a problem until I got to the water’s edge.  That’s when they decided to act like little slip n’ slides.  They took me down – right into an acacia tree and then into the water hole. 

There it is. The tree on the left. Small, but deadly.Now just so you can fully understand what happened to me, acacia trees evolved thorns up to four inches long that cover their branches to protect them from all the browsers in Africa that think they are tasty - or in my case from blundering veterinary students moving too quickly for their own good.

In a blur I got up, grabbed the bull’s horns and pulled his head up out of the water before I really understood what had happened to me.  My left arm looked like a pin cushion and my butt was extremely uncomfortable.  Another vet student helping me hold my bull’s head up plucked the thorns out of my arm while a student working on the other swimmer pulled them out of my ass. There was something about not being able to move while holding the bull’s heavy head up with these two girls plucking thorns out of me that just made the situation even funnier.

We got the testing done which was remarkable considering most of the animal was underwater.  The next fun part came in reversing these animals.  We had to hold their heads until they gained enough control to hold them up themselves.  That also meant we had to move really fast when that moment came.  When my bull started moving his head on his own, I was outta there.  It wasn’t until I sat back down and the adrenaline died down a bit that I realized something.

The face of reliefThere was still a thorn in my butt.

Like.... in there... IN there.

We drove out of the compound and had our little debriefing.  Meanwhile I’m trying to look dignified while I have my hand down the back of my pants trying to get a hold of the little bugger.  Except that I couldn’t.  That thing had made my left cheek its home and it wasn’t coming out.  So after swallowing a bit a pride, I walked up to Dr. Brothers and asked for a hemostat.  He looked at me like I was some sissy American with a sliver, but reluctantly handed them over.  There was no looking dignified after that.  Until I pulled out the two inch thorn that had been fully embedded in my back side. 

It was painful, it was embarrassing, and I was victorious.  He couldn’t believe so much thorn could have embedded itself inside me without me crying like a little baby.  But there it was, displayed indignantly before my classmates and colleagues.

I learned that day that sometimes we have to sacrifice parts of ourselves for truly good medicine.  Whether it is pride, dignity, your own ass, or some pitiful combination of the three - we do what it takes to get the job done.

Plus it doesn’t hurt that experiences like this can make one hell of a story.