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[Lime Green Mouse]

Nothing has made me so sure that I need to get a veterinary degree than tonight has.  I wish I'd known what the heck to DO.

Tonight I went out to a bar with my boyfriend.  We'd been fighting, and we wanted to play a little pool and blow off some steam.  On our way back we passed an animal body sitting up in the road.  We turned around to check on it, and it was a possum - still alive and swaying.  We pulled in to make sure we were right - definitely still alive.  I hopped out and picked up the possum in my sweater.  A POSSUM.  Let me pick it up in my SWEATER.  That's when you know something is seriously wrong.  There was a huge lane-wide trail of blood leading up to it, but no visible wounds except for its nose.  Since it was still breathing I held it in my lap and my boyfriend pulled us into a parking lot to start calling numbers.

Only two places were open within an hour radius - the college teaching vet clinic and one commercial vet clinic.  The teaching one told us they couldn't take wild animals after 10 pm, and it was 1 am.  The commercial clinic told us, after we told them that no one else would see him and he was dying, "well neither can I" and hung up on us.  Really freakin compassionate, right??

When we called the school clinic back they agreed to at least evaluate him and put him down if needed.  We dropped him off with a really nice, responsible chick who will hopefully either give him the care he needs or finally put him out of his misery (an hour after we freaking picked him up - an HOUR...I had a dying wild animal laying in my lap for an hour before someone would help him, and who knows how long he was in the road).  I know she'll do the right thing, but she's not permitted to let us know once we've signed him over, so here's fingers and toes crossed to the little guy that one way or another his suffering will be over.

I'm just so messed up about this.  How can someone just leave an animal in the road like that, still alive?  Why didn't anyone else stop to check on it, when they saw it was sitting up?  How can you just hang up on someone asking for help for a suffering animal?  I'm no peta freak, but I don't think any animal should be denied help just based on it being wild, or it being a possum.  So what?  I mean, I practically took a bath in betadine (it kinda got blood all over me and my clothes) and yes, I probably brought home fleas.  But seriously...isn't it worth it to help an animal that has just been hit by a car??

Ugh...this is so...I'm like shaking.  I think I should start carrying heavy duty gloves and cages in my car...I keep finding needy animals. 

[snowy3457]

Thats soooo right.  ALl animals deserve help. let meknow as soon as you know about what happened to the possum.

[Lime Green Mouse]

Unfortunately, the place that finally took him is not allowed to tell me anything about him once I turned him over.    I trust they did the right thing, though.

[Cutecarly07]

ya thats sad!! and my Favorite animal is a tiger, possums and mice!!! i love possums!! wow fyi you did the right thing!!

[moustress]

OH, ghodz, people can be so bloodyminded and stupid. I'd have done the same thing. I guess a lot of folks don't understand that pain is pain, whether it's a human or an animal, and IT HURTS!!

This really gets me since an opossum was the first critter I ever squashed flat after I started driving. I killed it dead, so there was no thought of rescue.

[Lime Green Mouse]

I'm sorry moustress.  At least it died quickly     I've been fortunate so far *knock on wood* that the only animals I've run over were already dead.  I've stopped making trips out of town at night, though, just so I don't push my luck more than I have to.  I've had some pretty close calls. 

[Toast]

People can be so cruel. As moustress said, pain is pain. Isn't the point of vets supposed to be saving animals, not turning them away in their hour of need? A hospital for humans wouldn't turn away a dying patient, yet animal hospital do. Thats just wrong!

[Cutecarly07]

People can be so cruel. As moustress said, pain is pain. Isn't the point of vets supposed to be saving animals, not turning them away in their hour of need? A hospital for humans wouldn't turn away a dying patient, yet animal hospital do. Thats just wrong!

you know carly you are SO right!!