Sally is a 44-year-old Sumatran orangutan at the Denver Zoo. She developed a benign fibroid tumor of the uterus that was interfering with her other organs. Veterinarian Diana Boon arranged to collect orangutan blood from around the country and enlisted volunteer surgeons to remove the growth. The doctors tried to prepare but found a dearth of information on orangutan anatomy.
But when Sally lost the ability to go to the bathroom, Boon understood she had only days to live if the obstruction wasn’t removed. So on a Friday afternoon she fired off e-mails to the team, telling them the surgery had to be done by Sunday. And they wouldn’t have blood.
“It had to be a bloodless surgery,” Boon said. “It was either this would work, or this wouldn’t work and it would be fatal for Sally.”
And then, the group got a break. Covidien, a Boulder company that makes a device called LigaSure that helps limit blood-loss during surgery, donated the use of a machine for Sally’s sake.
Another snag loomed. The procedure demanded quite a bit of rummaging around in Sally’s abdomen. If a wayward blade nicked her distended bowel, she would die; Sally would not understand how to use a colostomy bag.
There were other hairy moments during the six hours of surgery, but Sally came through it. Read the entire story (and see a video) at The Denver Post. Link -via Fark

Last year marked the 150th anniversary of the first gunshots of the Civil War -and the first gunshot wounds. As it turns out, the bloodiest war in American history was also one of the most influential in battlefield medicine. Civil War surgeons learned fast, and many of their MacGyver-like solutions have had lasting impact. Here are some of the advances and the people behind them.
Life Saving Amputation: The General who Visited his Leg
The old battlefield technique of trying to save limbs with doses of TLC (aided by wound-cleaning rats and maggots) quickly fell out of favor During the Civil War, even for top officers. The sheer number of injured was too high, and war surgeons quickly discovered the best way to stave deadly infections was to simply lop off the area -quickly.
Among those saved by the saw was Daniel E. Sickles, the eccentric commander of the 3rd Army Corps. In 1863, at the Battle of Gettysburg, the major general’s right leg was shattered by a Confederate shell. Within the hour, the leg was amputated just above the knee. His procedure, publicized in the military press, paved the way for many more. Since the new Army Medical Museum in Washington, D.C. had requested battlefield donations, Sickles sent the limb to them in a box labeled “With the compliments of Major General D.E.S.” Sickles visited his leg yearly on the anniversary of its emancipation.

Daniel Sickles' leg on display at the the National Museum of Health and Medicine.
(Image credit: Wikipedia user Nis Hoff)
Amputation saved more lives than any other wartime medical procedure by instantly turning complex injuries into simple ones. Battlefield surgeons eventually took no longer than six minutes to get each moaning man on the table, apply a handkerchief soaked in chloroform or ether, and make the deep cut. Union surgeons became the most skilled limb hackers in history. Even in deplorable conditions, they lost only about 25 percent of their patients -compared to a 75 percent mortality rate among similarly injured civilians at the time. The techniques invented by wartime surgeons -including cutting as far from the heart as possible and never slicing through joints- became the standard.
As for the nutty-sounding behavior of the leg-visiting commander, Sickles can be justifiably accused. In 1859, while serving in Congress, he shot and killed U.S. Attorney Philip Barton Key for sleeping with Sickles’ wife. Charged with murder, Sickles became the first person in the United States to be found not guilty by reason of temporary insanity.
The Anesthesia Inhaler: A Knockout Breakthrough
In 1863, Stonewall Jackson’s surgeon recommended the removal of his left arm, which had been badly damaged by friendly fire. When a chloroform-soaked cloth was placed over his nose, the Confederate general, in great pain, muttered, “What an infinite blessing,” before going limp.

This story has all the makings of a wonderful ad campaign for the pen manufacturer. A woman accidentally swallowed a pen. Her husband and doctor thought that she was making the whole thing up, so nothing was done about it. Twenty-five years later, a surgeon removed it from her and found the pen in full working order.
Link -via DVICE | Photo: British Medical Journal/Oliver Richard Waters, Tawfique Daneshmend, Tarek Shirazi

This stomach churning tale is of an otherwise healthy man who went to the hospital suffering from abdominal pains. Only the doctors informed the father of two and farmer that he had a full set of female reproductive organs.
Doctors suspected a normal hernia, but when they carried out an exploratory operation they were shocked to discover it had been caused by a female uterus, ovaries, Fallopian tubes, a cervix and underdeveloped vaginal tissue.
Dr Pramod Kumar Shrivastava, a surgeon at the Chhindwara district hospital said the patient had external male organs, was fit from working in the fields, and lived a normal life.
Sheng Xianhui of Kunming, China went into a hospital to have gall stones removed. A week after surgery, his wife noticed a tattoo on his rear end. Sheng claims that the staff at Yunnan Stone Disease Hospital tattooed his backside with characters meaning “stone disease” while he was in surgery.
The hospital has now called police to try to evict Sheng – but he has welcomed the police involvement and asked them to investigate.
“I’m not leaving,” he said. “I’m worried that if I go out for even half an hour, the hospital will claim I had the tattoo done outside.
“But even if I wanted a tattoo, I wouldn’t want those characters and I wouldn’t want it on that part of my body.”
The hospital staff blames the marks on a possible allergic reaction. Link -via Dave Barry
Dugan Smith of Fostoria, Ohio, was ten years old when he was diagnosed with bone cancer. After chemotherapy, his leg was removed, but part of it was reattached -backward!
Known as a rotationplasty, his surgery involved removing a large section of his right leg that surrounded the tumour – from below his knee to about mid-thigh – then reattaching the lower limb to the shortened upper thigh.
The twist, so to speak, is that Dugan’s lower leg was rotated 180 degrees and sewn on backwards.
His ankle now acts as his knee, his calf has replaced the lower part of his thigh and his backwards-facing foot slips into a prosthetic and powers the reversed muscles and joint with an up-and-down motion.
“I’ll be able to play basketball and baseball – baseball’s my favourite sport,” says Dugan, a seventh grader who pitches and plays first base on his junior high school’s baseball team in Fostoria, Ohio. “Just knowing I would be able to play those made my mind go straight at it.”
It took 18 months of physical therapy for Dugan to learn a new way to use his leg. Now 13, he is playing baseball again. Link -via J-Walk Blog
Ming Li was on her way to school when a tractor ran over her and severed her left hand. Doctors in China thought the hand could be saved, but the arm was too damaged for reattachment. So they grafted the hand to Ming’s leg in to keep it alive! After three months of repair and healing, the 9-year-old’s arm was judged to be ready for the hand.
Dr Hou Jianxi, spokesman for the hospital in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, said the hand had now been transplanted back on to her arm.
“When she came in, her left hand was completely severed from her body. It was very scary,” he told the Zhoukou Evening Post.
“But Ming Li can now move her wrist again and her left hand is a healthy pink colour proving that the blood is circulating well.”
With therapy and additional surgery, doctors believe she will be able to use the hand for most normal activities. Link -via Breakfast Links
In this educational game, you don’t go for points; you just try not to kill the patient! You’ll learn many things about brain surgery in the process, thanks to the surgeon who guides you. Those who are very squeamish may want to pass, but the patient is a cartoon so it’s not too scary. Link -via Dark Roasted Blend
When Eleni Dagiasi flew from Athens to Delhi for a kidney transplant, little did she know that her trip would involve a raid by the police. Turns out, the man she trusted to perform a kidney transplant surgery was known as India’s Kidney Kingpin.
Yudhijit Bhattacharjee of Discover write an intriguing story about the black market of organs and the fall of the Kidney Kingpin:
The mastermind, India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) charged, was Amit Kumar—a man who performed the surgeries with no more formal training than a degree in ayurveda, the ancient Indian system of medicine. In a career spanning two decades, Kumar had established one of the world’s largest kidney trafficking rings, with a supply chain that extended deep into the Indian countryside. Some of his clients were from India. Many came from Greece, Turkey, the Middle East, Canada, and the United States.
At parties in India and abroad, Kumar introduced himself as one of India’s foremost kidney surgeons, said Rajiv Dwivedi, a CBI investigator based in Delhi. The claim wasn’t entirely illegitimate: Investigators estimate that Kumar has performed hundreds of successful transplants, a practice so lucrative that he was able to finance Bollywood movies and had to fend off extortion threats from the Mumbai mafia. Two weeks after the police crackdown in Gurgaon, Kumar was arrested at a wildlife resort in Nepal and brought back to India, where he now awaits trial.
Link – via 3quarksdaily
Shannon Elliott of Long Island, New York lost the thumb and two fingers of her left hand in a fireworks incident. The 25-year-old recently underwent surgery to replace her thumb -with one of her big toes!
“To me it was a no brainer. I’d rather lose a toe and gain a whole hand,” said the mother of two.
Losing a toe has little effect on a human’s ability to walk or run, but losing a thumb nearly incapacitates hand functionality.
Doctors said Elliott will regain full use of her hand in six to nine months.
“She’ll be able to pinch and grasp with her hand, she’ll be able to hold things and pick up her children,” said plastic surgeon Dr. Jason Ganz.
Doctors even expect the new digit to change size in time to more closely resemble a thumb. Warning: graphic picture. Link -via Digg
The da Vinci surgical robot, a $1.4 million robot can perform heart surgeries, remove cancers, and do so with minimally invasive procedures. For example, in order to operate on prostate cancer, the da Vinci avoids cutting the abdomen, therefore causing less blood loss, faster recovery, and minimal scars. Though there are initial problems with its use, it seems reasonable that one day, medical care will all be robotized.
The da Vinci has been billed as a breakthrough in the quest to make surgery less invasive. With its four remote-controlled arms and sophisticated camera, it enables surgeons to operate through small incisions with greater precision and visibility.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by nmiller.
Watch as Instructables member fungus amungus demonstrates surgical techniques n Gummi bears. Witness tumor excision, heart transplants (shown), brain transplants, and progressively sillier experimental operations. As one commenter pointed out, it couldn’t be as traumatic as being chewed up and swallowed! Link -via Digg
Neatorama readers may remember Lakshmi Tatma, the little girl who was born with eight limbs due to a headless parasitic twin. The twin was surgically removed two years ago. Lakshmi is now four years old and has started school, but her physical problems are not over.
Six months after the complex operation to remove Lakshmi’s parasitic twin, doctors discovered she had developed scoliosis, or a curvature of the spine.
Without a complex operation to correct her spine doctors have warned her back will be forced into increasingly severe deformities as she grows, possibly leaving her disabled.
Separately, Lakshmi requires an operation to ‘detether’ her spine after it was discovered she was born with abnormal tissue connecting the spinal cord to her nervous system.
In a further operation orthopaedic surgeons must perform a procedure to ‘close her hips’, which are set too far apart and result in an unusual ‘gaited’ walk.
The charity that looks after Lakshmi’s progress is stretched to its limit, so a fund has been set up for her future operations. Link -via Digg
With all the debate going on with health care, you’d be forgiven if you want to skip this post. But I think I’ve found the solution to making health care affordable for Americans: just outsource it to Thailand.
Eric Wahlgren of AOL’s Daily Finance has the story of medical tourism:
Like some 47 million other Americans, Nancy Sowa (pictured) doesn’t have health insurance. So when her doctors last year told her she needed a total hip replacement, the office manager for a non-profit did what a growing number of U.S. citizens are doing: She headed abroad. At Wockhardt Hospital in Bangalore, India, the 56-year-old was put up in a hospital "suite" far swankier than what she would typically find in the U.S., with a computer, fridge, cable TV, sitting area and an extra bed for her travel companion.
More to the point, the two-hour surgery in July, performed by an orthopedic surgeon trained in the U.S. and Australia, was a success. Four months later, the Durham, N.C. resident is feeling like her old self again, going for long hikes and planning her next vacation. The final tab for the procedure, including rehabilitative therapy and round-trip airfare for two? $12,000. That’s a fraction of the $45,000 to $90,000 she had been told the surgery would cost at home.
"I wouldn’t have been able to do the surgery in the United States," says Sowa. "I didn’t have to explore taking out a second mortgage or tapping family members because I had this other option."
A trip through the International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago will make you glad you live in the modern world instead of the “good old days”! Wired has a gallery of exhibit photos ranging from a skull that belonged to a trepanation patient to early x-ray machines. Pictured is a vest used in 1899 to correct scoliosis. If this were posted as a “What Is It?” I would guess it to be an instrument of torture. Link -via Digg
(image credit: Jim Merithew/Wired.com)
John Manley of Wilmington, North Carolina suffered frequent pneumonia and coughing spells for over a year before the real culprit was found: there was a jagged inch-long piece of plastic lodged in his left lung. It turned out to be part of a utensil from Wendy’s Hamburgers. Manley was referred to Dr. Momen Wahidi, director of interventional pulmonology at Duke University for removal of the object.
Wahidi said Manley’s case presented challenges because so much scar tissue had formed around the object. But he was soon able to uncover more and more of the mystery item. He called out letters — an A, a B, a U, an R.
“We figured out during the case that it was saying hamburger,” Wahidi says. “But why would something that says hamburger be in this patient’s body?”
Manley thinks he probably inhaled the plastic when he gulped a drink. He now drinks with a straw. Link -via Terra Sigillata
Courtesy of the British Medical Asssociation, Wired has a collection of seven videos from the 1930s showing common surgeries. They’re good demonstrations of what has changed and what hasn’t in the past seventy years of medicine. The video above is of a Caesarean birth. Others include brain, ovarian, and tonsil surgeries. Note that these videos are medically graphic and not for the squeamish.
Think your health care plan is bad? Consider yourself lucky that you don’t live back in the middle ages when "advanced" surgeries were done using these 20 seriously scary surgical tools. Yikes.
This one to the left is the Arrow Remover:
Arrow Remover – Not much is known about this tool, but it is hypothesized that it was inserted into the wound in a contracted position, with the central shaft used to grasp the arrow. The blades, which appear to have their sharp edges facing outward, were then expanded using the scissor-like handles…
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by yugosakimi.
Veterinary medicine is a truly interesting field. On one hand, many procedures and medications are created for and tested on animals before they are used on humans. Alternatively, because there are so many species of animals out there, sometimes a basic medical procedure can present a whole new series of problems when applied to a certain animal. When veterinarians work with zoo residents or wild animals, they are confronted with even more challenges, often times needing to drug the animal before they can even investigate the cause of its discomfort.
Looking at the amazing care veterinarians provide does not only show what ingenious and fantastic people these animal doctors are, but also how amazing and unique each of their patients are.
Regardless on your opinion of Eastern medicine, it’s undeniable that the countries that practice these methods are true believers in their effectiveness. That in mind, it’s only fair that they would use these same cures and treatments on their animals. Of course, then the question arises, “how do you provide a 5,300 pound elephant with acupuncture?”
Tun was a 15 year-old Asian elephant with a long-lasting leg injury caused by a male elephant crushing her when she was only 4. The zoo veterinarians worried she would have a hard time supporting her body as she continued to age and gain weight. They decided to bring the zoo’s resident acupuncturist, Oh Soon Hock, in to give her some therapy. Oh Soon Hock had performed this therapy on cheetahs, orangutans and giraffes, but never on the world’s largest land mammal, the elephant.
Tun’s biweekly electric acupuncture sessions were expected to last for almost six months. To get her to lay down and cooperate, her keepers cooed at her, gently tugged on her ears and rewarded her with bits of fruit. While handling the sessions well for the most part, she would occasionally become restless from lying on one side. Acupuncture is generally a painless procedure, but that didn’t leave Oh out of danger from the unanesthetized animal. Once, the electric charge in the needles led her whole body to jerk violently.
After only a month and a half, she already began showing a noticed change. “After the first treatment, she was more mobile. Now her leg can be bent better and her muscles are more relaxed,” said Oh.
It may seem a little strange to sterilize an animal to help save a species from extinction. It also may seem a little strange to sterilize a fish at all. But that’s just what researchers from the University of Georgia did in order to help protect the wild short-nosed sturgeon population.
As to why you would “fix” an animal that’s going extinct, the fact is they sterilized a captive-bred sturgeon for release into the wild population. The number of farmed sturgeons is just fine, it’s the wild ones the doctors were concerned about. This special fish was going to be placed in the wild so the scientists could gather more information about the sturgeons, like their habitat viability, mortality rates, and distribution. At the same time, the scientists wanted to protect the gene pool of her wild counterparts.
Naturally, sterilizing a fish is not quite the same as spaying your dog. To anesthetize the fish, drugs were added directly into its water. The veterinarian, Dr Stephen Hernandez-Divers, inserted two endoscopes with cameras into the fish so he could get a clearer picture of what he was doing. He then had to cut out the ovaries and cauterize the wound, which he was able to do simultaneously using one specialized instrument. He also tied the fish’s fallopian tubes. Throughout the surgery, there were only two pinhole incisions cut into the fish and these both were stitched up as soon as the procedure was over.
The fish recovered from the surgery well and was soon released into the wild to help learn more about our wild sturgeon population.
A lot of animals rely much more on their sense of smell or sound than they rely on their eye sight. Owls are the opposite. They are even more reliant on sight than us humans are and will eventually starve to death if they cannot use their extraordinary sight for hunting. So when a great horned owl showed up at the Colorado State University with a damaged cornea, the school’s ophthalmology department knew than something had to be done soon.
Dr. Julie Gionfriddo was placed in charge of the surgery and she opted to attach a piece of the bird’s muscle to the damaged cornea. The muscle worked as a bandage and allowed the eye to heal on its own. After several weeks, the bird’s eye was mostly healed, and a second procedure was done to cut the muscle away so the owl could see again. This operation was performed with the help of a specialized microscope. The cornea was stitched up to let it complete the healing process. Because the eye needs proteins from inside the eyelid, the eyelid was stitched closed as well.
Within the following week, the eyelid was unstitched and the bird finally had its sight back completely. Eventually, the beautiful bird of prey was released back into its natural habitat, none the worse for the entire experience.
Source | Photo: apurdam (Andrew) [Flickr]
These may not be a common procedure, but dogs across the country have had their testicles not only removed, but replaced. Creators of Neuticles claim that dogs who are neutered lose self-esteem, are traumatized from the experience and don’t look as good as other dogs. So to help loving dog owners fix their pets without having to traumatize them, the company has released prosthetic dog testicles designed to trick man and beast alike into believing the pup has not been tampered with.
Reading a variety of pet forums and testimonials, it seems that Neuticles are of greater benefit to dog owners than the dogs. The products seem to sell very well in places like Texas, that are known for having very masculine populations. There are a lot of people feel like they are emasculating themselves by having their dogs fixed, and these people are ideal clients for the Missouri-based company that produces Neuticles. According to their website, over 100,000 animals have been “neuticled” already.
As silly as these products may sound, it seems even stranger that some people are genuinely offended by the concept of artificial dog balls. Who are these people –dog show operators. All dog shows expect the animals being presented to be of breeding stock, as such, all of the dogs must be “intact.” The AKC keeps its eyes out for sneaky pet owners who want to neuter their dogs and still allow them to be show animals. If owners are caught having dogs with Neuticles, they will be permanently barred from future events.
How do you treat a 9,000 pound animal addicted to heroin? That’s what veterinarians in China had to find out when they encountered an Asian elephant with a major drug problem. The smugglers that illegally attempted to capture Big Brother fed him bananas laced with heroin in an attempt to keep him under control. Unfortunately, when they were arrested, Big Brother started to go through withdrawal symptoms.
So the veterinarians at the Beijing animal protection center Big Brother was sent to had to learn how to make a drug detox program suitable for a mammal of this size. For the first year of the treatment, the elephant had to receive methadone injections five times the dosage given to humans. Gradually, the dosage was lowered until Big Brother was clean and sober. The program took over 3 years for Big Brother to complete, but now he seems happy and healthy.
Sea turtles rely heavily on their big front flippers –not only for swimming, but for climbing onto sandy beaches. Without being able to get on dry land, turtles are unable to lay eggs and continue their species. So when a sea turtle missing her front fin was rescued in southwestern Japan, the Sea Turtle Association of Japan arranged immediately began brainstorming. It wasn’t long before everyone involved agreed to give the little girl a new lease on life with the help of a prosthetic fin.
“We need to pay special attention as the forelimbs will have to be strong enough to (allow her) to climb up a beach,” said Erika Akai, a researcher at the non-profit Sea Turtle Association of Japan.
The turtle is believed to have lost its fin after a shark attack, making her a very brave girl. This bravado should help when it comes time for her to re-learn to swim once again with the help of her artificial limb. The team hopes her strength will come back enough for her to be able to lay eggs in the future. The project will begin in May, once there has been time for the rescue group to raise funds and develop a working prototype for the animal’s fin. It will be exciting to find out how the turtle fares.
“We are fully aware that it will be a difficult challenge,” said a spokeswoman for the prosthetic limb company, Kawamura Gishi Co. “But we were moved by the passion of the association and decided to take part in the project.”
If you like these sorts of stories, I highly recommend The Rhino With Glue-On Shoes, a book about vets and their most memorable patients.
Surgeons have found a new way to send updates to other doctors, medical students, and the public during surgery -by using the social networking site Twitter! Last week, doctors at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit “Tweeted” an operation to remove a tumor from a kidney.
Dr. Craig Rogers, the lead surgeon in the Henry Ford surgery, said the impetus for his Twittering was to let people know that a tumor can be removed without taking the entire kidney.
“We’re trying to use this as a way to get the word out,” Rogers said.
Observers say Twittering about a procedure is a natural outgrowth of the social networking media revolution.
“Doing this removes a real communication barrier. It helps make something scary much more comprehendable,” said Christopher Parks, co-founder of the Web site changehealthcare.com. “It brings us closer together and makes us more engaged.”
Link -via Geek Like Me
No doubt about it -these are horror stories. There’s the 13-inch metal tool left in a patient’s body, the women who underwent heart surgery scheduled for a different patient, and several cases of surgery on the wrong side of the body. Pictured is Jésica Santillán, who died after a heart transplant from a donor with an incompatible blood type.
The error sent the patient into a comalike state, and she died shortly after an attempt to switch the organs back out for compatible ones failed. The hospital blamed human error for the death, along with a lack of safeguards to ensure a compatible transplant.
It’s a fairly rare thing to be clumsy enough to cut off your hand, and I’m sure it’s even rarer to do it twice.
That’s what happened to New Zealand meatpacker Bryan Speers. While cutting meat with a band saw, he slipped and accidentally severed his left hand. He was rushed to hospital where the attempt to reattach his limb was hindered by scarring from a previous operation to attach the same hand after a previous accident!
Eventually surgeons did manage to successfully reattach his hand, and while he is expected to make a recovery, he will have to remain in hospital for quite a while while he regains the usage of his hand.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Jake.
In case you’re not familiar with her, Jocelyn Wildenstein is a wealthy socialite who is said to have spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $4 million on plastic surgery. There are a couple of different stories out there, both originating from when she found her husband in bed with a 19-year-old Russian model. Either she had surgery to try to keep her appearance young and fresh to try to save her marriage, or she purposely told plastic surgeons that she wanted to look like a cat because he loved big game cats so much. This is what she might look like if she had some of the most drastic surgeries reversed:
Here’s a progression of her look, by the way.
Link via Awful Plastic Surgery
Skip this one if you’re squeamish. Here’s a gruesome yet fascinating article from The List Universe: 10 people who were forced by dire circumstances to perform surgery … on themselves!
Take, for instance, the self-surgery of one Dr. Leonid Rogozov:
Surgical Procedure: Appendectomy
At the age of 27 Soviet Doctor Leonid Rogozovwas was stationed at the Novolazarevskaya base in the Antarctic. The doctor recognized his own acute appendicitis and worsening condition. Because of the absence of a support aircraft and inclement weather along with the danger of a burst appendix the doctor decided he would have to perform surgery on himself. With the team’s meteorologist holding the retractors, a driver to hold the mirror and other scientists passing surgical implements, he sat in a reclined position and cut out his own appendix under local anesthetic. During the operation he passed out, but was able to continue and complete the procedure in little less than two hours.
Interesting Fact: A detailed report was written by Dr Rogozov documenting the unusual event along with the photo shown above. The doctor made a full recovery and resumed all duties in two weeks.
Link – via mental_floss and i met a possum
Gentlemen, we can rebuild her. We have the technology. And that’s just exactly what vets did for Edgar, a 4-year-old long-haired feline who lost her face in an accident:
Me-ouch! Veterinarians on Tuesday performed an unusual surgery to reattach the face of a cat they believe was injured by a car’s fan belt, probably because she tried to stay warm under the hood. [...]
Remarkably, Edgar suffered no major blood loss nor any permanent nerve damage from her accident. She just needed to have her facial skin stitched back on during an hour-long surgery, according to veterinary surgeon Michael Pavletic.
"And she should be fine after this," Pavletic said. Besides the skin hanging from Edgar’s face, Edgar seemed normal, Kendrick said. "She was purring and sticking her head up so we could pet her," Kendrick said. "She even tried to chew at her skin. I’d never seen anything like it."
Link - Thanks Denita!

