ok so yesterday was an exciting day at work.

I discharged a cat who had been hospitalized for the day - went over everything with the owner, gave her the meds and food samples to take home, and she left.

Well like 5 minutes later, the phone rings and the receptionist answered it, and immediately came and got me. She said that the lady who just picked up her cat was on the phone crying and that she was just in a car accident. I picked up the phone and asked, "Are you okay? Where are you?" She was crying hard and said she was just down the street in a major intersection and was in a bad accident and wanted to know if I could come get her cat. I said I'd be right there.

I bolted out the door and ran like hell down to the major intersection. When I ran up to the scene of the accident, I was shocked. The two vehicles both appeared totaled. One was halfway up in the grass median between the two four-lane roads. There was glass everywhere, and police, ambulance, and fire were already on the scene. They had the 8 lane highway completely shut down.

I ran across the road and amazingly, the rescue personnel let me go right up to the vehicles. I was still wearing my scrub jacket so maybe they knew I was coming to help. To be honest, I didn't know what I was going to find in the car. All the windows were blown out, the tires blown out, the SUV and pickup were totaled.

I ran up to the driver's side of the SUV, which I knew to be our client's car. She was still in the driver's seat and paramedics were taking vitals and asking her questions. She had an obvious head injury - there was bruising and blood, but otherwise, she appeared ok other than she was crying and in shock.

I saw the cat carrier in the passenger seat so I ran around the other side of the vehicle. I identified myself to one of the police officers, and they said the cat seemed ok, but the bag of meds and food were out in the middle of the highway and they had picked everything back up and put it back in the bag. The doors were too smashed to open, so I had to pull the cat out through the blown out passenger window, careful not to cut myself on all the glass. Max the cat seemed unhurt but I needed to get him back to the clinic to be sure. I told the owner I would be taking Max and keep him there until further notice.

So I had the cat carrier and the bag of meds, and ran back across the road and back to the clinic. When I got back, I took Max out of the carrier, and he seemed fine, other than being covered in glass. I did a full physical on him to make sure there were no obvious injuries, and got all the glass off him and out of his carrier, and put him back in his cage. He seemed pretty untraumatized by the whole thing, actually.

I haven't heard an update on the owner yet, which I'm sure they kept her overnight in the hospital for concussion injury. I still don't know what or who caused the accident or what happened. But I tell ya, my adreneline was pumping and I was in rescue mode! Hopefully everyone involved was okay.

This is the exact reason why we tell people to use cat carriers! If Max hadn't been in a carrier, he would've flown out the window or against the windshield and would probably either be dead or severely injured. People don't think this would ever happen to them, but this proves that it only takes a second, no matter where you are, and it may not even be your fault - but accidents happen and you have to take responsibilty for everyone in the car, including pets. This is also a good reason to keep dogs seatbelted in with a harness. So if you or anyone you know travels with their pet without proper restraint or a cat carrier - make them aware of what can happen in a blink of an eye!