Lacrosse Ball - Saving a Life

How have you gotten to use veterinary medicine outside of the classroom? Read about how Maddie Hileman, University of Illinois, saved a life!

When a client and patient are experiencing an emergency, they may find themselves at their most vulnerable state. Two years ago I was walking through a park when I noticed a panic breaking out over a dog in respiratory distress. The owner and dog had been playing fetch with a lacrosse ball, and the lacrosse ball had become completely lodged in the back of the dog’s throat (stuck behind the soft palate) and was now occluding the dog’s airway. I ran over as the dog started to turn blue and explained that I might be able to help. The dog could potentially only survive for less than a few minutes with an occluded airway, and the nearest animal hospital was over 25 minutes away. I knew then that I would have no other choice but to try to save him myself. I have seen multiple instances of a tennis ball occlusion, which can be fixed by poking a hole in the tennis ball with a blade and using the hole to reach something inside of the tennis ball to grab ahold of it before pulling it out. However, the lacrosse ball was a different situation as it is completely solid, hard, and rubber. After a few failed attempts to dislodge the ball manually with my hands, I realized we needed some sort of tool to get it out. I ran to my car to see what I could find, and I was in luck- A Swiss Army Knife! I fanned it open in order to get the corkscrew piece isolated. Acting quickly and calmly I used the corkscrew to get a good grip of the lacrosse ball before successfully dislodging it with a satisfying “POP!” noise. As the dog began taking deep recovery breaths I advised the owner to have their dog be further examined at the local small animal ER to check for signs of hypoxic damage. Although this was by far an unconventional approach, I was proud to have acted calming and quickly in order to save a life. Thinking back on this event, I realized that I wanted to dedicate myself to small and exotic animal emergency medicine.