Talk about a freak injury.
Callie, a one-year-old mixed canine, was being walked down a Des Moines sidewalk, minding her own business, doing a little sniffing here and there when her life was turned upside down.
“Callie ran her right eye into a fiberglass snow blowing marker stick that been broken off,” said Dr. Rachel Allbaugh, the Lora and Russ Talbot Endowed Professor of Veterinary Medicine and ophthalmologist.
The freak accident caused considerable bleeding and discomfort to Callie who was rushed to a Des Moines veterinary emergency clinic. After several treatments, Callie was later referred to the Hixson-Lied Small Animal Hospital’s ophthalmology service.
When she was presented, Allbaugh and the ophthalmology team determined Callie was not visual in her right eye. She was also showing signs of discomfort, blepharospasm and the right eye was deviated medially.
“Looking further, we found a focal hazy lesion of Callie’s right cornea,” Allbaugh said. “When it was magnified, we could identify numerous short white linear foreign bodies embedded in the cornea which we suspected were the remaining fiberglass particles.”
The ophthalmology team was able to remove a portion the particles but most remained embedded in the cornea. Upon a recheck more than a week later, a number of fiberglass particles had worked their way out of the cornea.
Still, Callie remains blind in her right eye, a condition Allbaugh anticipates will be permanent.
“We are unsure of the cause of the blindness but we suspect a potential compression of the optic nerve due to the trauma Callie experienced,” she said.
This is the first case Allbaugh has encountered where a companion animal has suffered such an injury.
“The prognosis is good for Callie’s eye and we are hopeful she will be able to keep it,” Allbaugh said. “I know many of us now will be pulling broken snow poles out the ground, so this doesn’t happen to another pet or human.”
January 2025
