My Staff Panicked Over An Injured Alligator—Then I Cut It Open And Found The Real Emergency
Part 1
The morning shift at the emergency clinic had started exactly like any other typical Tuesday.
I had just finished evaluating a golden retriever with a severe ear infection and was reviewing charts at my desk.
I took a sip of my lukewarm coffee and rubbed the bridge of my nose to ward off an impending headache.
That was the exact moment Megan appeared in the doorway of my office.
She held her clipboard tightly against her chest with white-knuckled fingers.
Her face was completely devoid of any emotion, which was highly unusual for my lead assistant.
“Brian, we need your help with an injured alligator that is coming in,” she said smoothly.
“ETA is two minutes.”
I stopped with my coffee mug halfway to my mouth.
I stared at her for a long moment while my brain violently struggled to process the string of words she had just spoken.
Our typical trauma patients are cats who swallowed sewing needles or terriers who chased cars and lost.
I blinked several times as a heavy, oppressive silence settled over the small office.
“I must have misheard you,” I finally muttered.
“Would you like to repeat what you just said to me?”
Megan did not blink, nor did her expression shift even a fraction of an inch.
She did not crack a smile or give any indication that this was some elaborate prank orchestrated by the staff.
“An injured alligator will be coming through our front doors in less than two minutes,” she repeated slowly.
My mouth dropped open slightly in sheer disbelief.
I pushed my rolling chair back from the desk and stood up abruptly.
“Why not take it to an exotic veterinarian?” I asked, my voice rising in pitch.
When I woke up this morning, my biggest concern was a scheduled knee surgery for an overweight bulldog.
“I didn’t play twenty questions with them on the phone,” Megan stated with a dry, clipped tone.
“They simply said we were the correct ones to help and hung up.”
I rubbed a hand aggressively down my face to make sure I was actually awake.
I grabbed my stethoscope off the desk and threw it around my neck.
“Secure every single animal currently in our care,” I ordered firmly.
“Start building a blockade by the recovery cages and give us a clear, wide path from the lobby to the emergency room.”
I was actually ordering structural preparations for a rogue reptile.
Megan spun on her heel and rushed out into the main hallway.
She immediately started barking loud, rapid-fire orders at the other vet techs and assistants.
I couldn’t blame them for the split-second of terrified hesitation.
“You heard her, move!” I barked out from my doorway.
The entire staff scattered instantly like roaches when the lights flip on.
The clinic erupted into a flurry of frantic movement and highly controlled chaos.
Dan and another assistant started lugging out heavy wire transport crates of all sizes from the storage closet.
A few assistants dropped their clipboards and rushed to grab the thick, transparent sheets of plastic.
We had to protect our vulnerable, sedated animals who were recovering from surgery in the main ward.
Dan ripped off strips of silver duct tape with his teeth and started furiously taping the edges together to hold the makeshift wall steady.
Another tech grabbed heavy-duty steel wire and began binding the dog crates to the concrete structural support pillars.
“I need a heavy transport gurney over here right now,” I called out over the noise.
I began rapidly setting up the large-animal trauma equipment right next to the emergency entrance doors.
Megan came rolling the heavy metal gurney over the linoleum floor, the wheels squeaking in protest.
Megan sprinted to the front glass door and flipped the open sign to closed.
She locked the deadbolt and started frantically calling our scheduled patients to delay their afternoon appointments.
The vet techs grabbed our thick hurricane-proofing wood panels from the shed out back to line the bottom of the crates.
I pulled out my phone with trembling hands and started doing as much rapid research as possible on alligator cardiovascular anatomy.
The simple fact that the caller reported it as injured told me this was likely a severe trauma-related incident.
Before we were completely ready, a massive, violent banging echoed from the glass of the front door.
The entire clinic froze perfectly in place for a terrified second.
A brave vet tech stepped forward and quickly pulled the heavy glass door open.
It was definitely a severe trauma case, just as I had suspected.
The enormous, muddy alligator strapped to the gurney was completely, undeniably dead.
She and her burly partner forcefully hefted the heavy gurney over the metal threshold and into the lobby.
The woman was practically straddling the massive reptile while performing frantic, deep chest compressions on its thick, scaly hide.
I stood there frozen, feeling infinitely more confused than when Megan had first walked into my office.
“Ma’am, the alligator is already dead,” I said slowly and clearly.
Her partner frantically grabbed IV lines from our cart and started trying to hook them up to the reptile’s tough, impenetrable skin.
“You think I don’t know that?” the woman screamed at the absolute top of her lungs.
The vet techs and assistants all exchanged wild, terrified looks with one another.
“Then why did you bring it here?” I demanded, trying desperately to make sense of the absolute madness unfolding in my lobby.
The woman gripped the stainless steel edge of the gurney with white knuckles.
“Because the dog inside the alligator’s stomach might not be dead yet.”
