AUSTIN, TX – Unable to contain his excitement any longer with a freshly-harvested femur in his right paw, orthopedic surgeon Brock Hammersley bolted out of the operating room, tongue salivating and tail wagging, and rushed straight home so he could bury it in the backyard.
“I’m so excited, I can barely stop panting!” said Hammersley, eyeing the patch of dirt near the the driveway out back before he started digging a hole with his own bare hands, femur snugged firmly between his teeth. “Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy…”
Linda Stephens, one of Hammersley’s neighbors, said Hammersley had bursted through the gate of his backyard and went straight into digging. Between the loud crash of the gate swinging open and the dirt being flung up towards her kitchen window, Stephens’ knew that her neighbor had come home with a huge prize.
“He gets excited and does the same thing, whether it’s a tibia or humerus, he’ll bury it out back then come over here with a tennis ball in his mouth and ask to play fetch,” Stephens continued, saying that she enjoys playing fetch with the orthopod. “He’s a good boy. Cute breed, though he pees all over the place.”
Stephens plans to get Hammersley neutered later this week.
Gomerblog asked the abandoned OR team what they do in this scenario when an orthopod like Hammersley does this.
“When we consent the patient for surgery, we mention it as part of the risks,” explained fellow orthopod Timothy Billroy, who goes by the name Tiny Arms Tim due to his fragile biceps. Billroy did not participate in the surgery but was an observer (adult bones are too heavy for him). “We told him there is always a risk of bleeding, infection, hardware failure, and one of the orthopods stealing his bones and burying it in his backyard for safekeeping. What d’ya know? It happens.”
