Horse with 70% burns - Recovering

aimeetb

aimeetb

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OMG just seen this in the DailyMail, the poor thing

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1385489/Horses-amazing-recovery-killed-her.html

What a beautiful horse!

So glad she is getting there!

ETA - this is why I used to get so P****D OFF with stupid idiots at my old yard smoking while they were mucking out! They said oh its only a little bit of ash, it wont hurt! I would hurt you if you ever harmed my horse! The yard owner didnt want to put signs up incase it offended people!! Needless to day I moved!
 
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I can't help thinking that if she had been in England she would have been PTS.

I've never seen such injuries but my goodness what a fighting spirit she must have.
 
Having been involved with adult humans who have gone through similar and who were able to express their pain, anxiety and frustration I would never put an animal through that. When they found her in that awful state the only thing IMHO they could have done to show they truly cared was to give her oblivion.
 
jemima_too said:
Having been involved with adult humans who have gone through similar and who were able to express their pain, anxiety and frustration I would never put an animal through that. When they found her in that awful state the only thing IMHO they could have done to show they truly cared was to give her oblivion.
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I wish there was a 'like' button.
 
Amazing she has recovered so well but as you have all said as soon as i'd seen her i'd have had her PTS.
I could not see my horse in that kind of pain for so long, as far as i'm concerned she had already suffered enough.
This is the kind of situation where if it was my horse and nobody around to help me, i could pull the trigger.

Brings tears to my eyes thinking of the pain she must have been in.
 
Bug2007 said:
Amazing she has recovered so well but as you have all said as soon as i'd seen her i'd have had her PTS.
I could not see my horse in that kind of pain for so long, as far as i'm concerned she had already suffered enough.
This is the kind of situation where if it was my horse and nobody around to help me, i could pull the trigger.

Brings tears to my eyes thinking of the pain she must have been in.
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I totally agree.
 
amymay said:
I can't believe they put that poor horse through that :mad:
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MurphysMinder said:
2 years of treatment and skin grafts!:eek: I have to say if she was mine I would have pts.
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Awful! That poor horse must have been in agony for such a long time. Really not fair on the horse IMO. If she was mine I too would have pts as soon as the vet got to her. It's unbelievable what some people put their animals through, and it's all for the owner rather than the animal.

Poor thing.
 
I've just finished reading a book about a big equine hospital in USA, they do seem to prolong treatment in some cases for far longer than we would over here.:(
 
Bug2007 said:
Brings tears to my eyes thinking of the pain she must have been in.
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Same here - that poor poor horse :( great that it will give inspiration.hope to injured kids but still, I could never do that to an animal :(
 
What a selfish thing to do! If they truly loved the horse then they would have had it PTS. Just cruel.

I just couldn't watch my horse endure all of that tbh. Horses aren't humans, I doubt it's grateful for the 18k spent etc. Poor, poor thing.
 
Reminds me of the whole Barbaro thing - Seems to be a mentality in the US, that life, no matter how awful, is better than death.

If she were mine I would have put her out of her misery :( Poor girl, I doubt she will ever truly recover, and two years of suffering, I couldn't do that to one of mine.
 
I agree with you Levade. I certainly couldn't have put my horse through such painful treatment. I wonder what sort of life the horse will have now that it's "recovered"....?
 
It depends, if you can control the pain (and horses will show if they are in pain, if she had been in a lot of pain she would not have pulled through) and manage it with a not unreasonable cost to the horse I see this as very little different to colic surgeries where horses then get repeated colic bouts and some owenrs will not PTS despite the horse colicing on a regular interval.

Often we are too quick to put a horse to sleep rather than value life and make every effort without causing unneccesary distress. Without knowing the life of this horse during those two years, demeanour etc. it is impossible to say whether this was reasonable or not.
 
SusieT said:
It depends, if you can control the pain (and horses will show if they are in pain, if she had been in a lot of pain she would not have pulled through) and manage it with a not unreasonable cost to the horse I see this as very little different to colic surgeries where horses then get repeated colic bouts and some owenrs will not PTS despite the horse colicing on a regular interval.

Often we are too quick to put a horse to sleep rather than value life and make every effort without causing unneccesary distress. Without knowing the life of this horse during those two years, demeanour etc. it is impossible to say whether this was reasonable or not.
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I think we can safely say that the life of this horse over the past two years would have been hell.

The survival rate for people who have received 70% burns is only about 50%. And the agony that these poor people go through can be indescribable at times. I'm sure if given the choice, some would want to be put out of their misery. We can make that choice for our animals - and often we are actually not quick enough to put an animal to sleep to stop its suffering.

If someone values life then to my mind they should understand that quality of life is much more important than quantity of life. And in the case of this horse, its quality of life for 2 years was zero - and will remain questionable until it's demise. And actually pain does not kill.

I can't quite get the logic behind equating colic to 70% burns I'm afraid.
 
I have to say I was pleased to see her almost recovered but you are all right, I think if I had seen my in that state I would have pts - i cant imagine ow its life has been over the past 2 years and how traumatised she must be and not able to tell anyone unlike a human. :(
 
Oh good heavens, I couldn't of put my a horse through that, it would of killed me seeing them in so much pain, not only that but an animal doesn't understand that in time things will/could be better like a human can, so think of the mental torture this horse went through as well.
 
Poor thing should have been put to sleep 2 years ago.
She may recover physically but god knows how much pain she has been in, and what mental scars will be left after such a horrific ordeal :(
 
SusieT said:
It depends, if you can control the pain (and horses will show if they are in pain, if she had been in a lot of pain she would not have pulled through) and manage it with a not unreasonable cost to the horse I see this as very little different to colic surgeries where horses then get repeated colic bouts and some owenrs will not PTS despite the horse colicing on a regular interval.

Often we are too quick to put a horse to sleep rather than value life and make every effort without causing unneccesary distress. Without knowing the life of this horse during those two years, demeanour etc. it is impossible to say whether this was reasonable or not.
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SusieT,

I really can't agree with you. Whilst I understand your laudable motives, the reality for that poor creature, can only be imagined. To suggest that if the horse had been in pain, it would not have pulled through, cannot be right. Over the centuries horses have, and still do, endure unimaginable suffering, at the hands of their owners, and still continue to be put to work.

Pre or post surgery, I would never allow a horse to endure recurring bouts of colic, no matter how attached to the animal I was.

"Valuing life", in my view is about putting the well being of the animal, before our own, regardless of the financial costs.

In my view, the motives of the owner and the vets concerned, at best, were skewed, and at the worst, were mind numbingly selfish.

Alec.
 
And typically nearly all the comments were 'for' keeping her alive and putting her through that awful pain. Yes she maybe almost recovered now but dear god what that poor creature musty have gone through. I would say the owner is selfish rather than kind, she was doing all of this for herself and not the horse.

I had a wry smile at the idiot who commented along the lines of owners putting bullets through horses heads just because they had broken a limb.... get real... sigh.
 
I am all for never put an animal to sleep unless absolutely necessary - but in this case I agree with others, I believe burns can be horrifically painful so I cant imagine how much pain this horse was in, no amount of pain relief could touch it I doubt - or if it was given in huge doses for 2 years, it wont have been good for it. If the horse had been mine, I think I would have PTS. I couldnt bare to see the horse in pain for 2 years...
 
Damnation said:
Poor thing should have been put to sleep 2 years ago.
She may recover physically but god knows how much pain she has been in, and what mental scars will be left after such a horrific ordeal :(
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I agree. Interesting that the photo of her "recovered" shows the chain across her nose - pain from the burns left her headshy/difficult to handle perhaps?????
 
Have been thinking about this since i posted yesterday.....it doesn't say how thick the burn were. If they were full thickness then all the nerve endings would have been burnt and so would be less painful at the time of the fire. Not sure how painful all that tissue regeneration would be though??? :confused:

But if that was the case, the horse was pain free as the nerves had bee destroyed, then maybe the 2yrs surgery is worthwhile? :o
 
I don't think anyone who'd had a bad burn would have described the healing as being pain free.
 
We have no knowledge of this horses recovery. Was she bright and eating well?
Let's say the first week was a rocky road-that's true for colic surgeries in some cases, the ones with poorer prognosis's. After that say she picked up, ate well, appeared comfortable. There then in my mind if the owner has the money is no justification in putting the horse down without giving it a go.
If the horse was uncomfortable, dull, depressed for a reasonable length of time, yes or course PTS but whilst you may not beleive it, vets have ethics and I have yet to meet one keep a horse going longer than necessary even when owners wanted to.
Without being involved in any case of any horse it is impossible to say, PTS because in humans it is like this. Don't forget we are talking about two different animals.
Of course, this could be a case of a bad vet ignoring an animal being in significant pain for a reasonable period of time but look, now there is what looks like a mostly recovered horse (again-impossible toa sses from those pics).
 
Alec Swan-believe it or not vets are quite good at assessing pain, both from a purely looking at the animals appearance and is it performing normal behvaiours point of view and from assessing the animals measureable parameters.
 
Amymay-how do you know the quality of life was zero? do you know How thick the burns were? Perhaps it had only two bad burns, in which case it's no different to a lot of the tendon degloving injuries or chest impaled wounds we see posted on here that take a long time to heal and require skin grafts and the rest wa quite superficial. I don't know either hence I cannot say what it's quality of life was.
 
http://www.vet.upenn.edu/Portals/0/images/Bellwether_general/BW72/nbc_case_study.pdf

so from a quick read (I'm on my way out), 2/3 days post accidnet the horse was becoming more its normal self. It had most of the burn centred around the back and head. It was eating. And remember the daily mail says two years of surgery and physio, she only has an $18000 bill, that's no more than a couple of weeks intensive care, max + physio. The physio may well have taken two years as many physio things do, not the actual burn healing.
All points in the horses favour.
 
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