Mini Hiatus Due To Injury

Hi All! I haven’t been able to do anything blog related for the past week due to a hand injury that prevented me from being able to type.  I was bit while trying to help an injured dog.  Both the dog and I are expected to make full recoveries! (full story below) I just wanted to stop in real quick, now that I can type again and say hi! I won’t be on again till Monday because I am going on a four day mini vacation, and my hand is still healing, but I wanted to get this posted!

Warning: While this story had a happy ending for everyone involved, it does involve a dog getting injured and I included pictures of my injuries. The pictures are not at all gruesome, but I know some people are super sensitive to injury pictures and dog stories, so beware that this has both!

Last Wednesday (7/24/19) I was driving to work when a dog ran in front of the car in front of me and almost got hit.  He made it safely across but I was worried it would happen again so I stopped to help him.  Before I could get to him he ran back into the street and was hit.  The dog went completely under the car but he managed to get up, tho he stumbled a bit. He then limped back to the side of the road. (I later found out that he suffered a punctured lung but is expected to make a full recovery) I was maybe 10-15 ft away when he got hit and I don’t think I will ever be able to forget that sound.  I felt so helpless.  It was awful.

Without even thinking I grabbed the dog so he couldn’t run back into the street, run away without aid, or hurt himself worse.  Grabbing a panicked dog who had just been hit by a car is not a great idea, and I got bit a few times. The first bite was on my arm just below my elbow.  I knew he was biting my arm but it was through my hoodie and I had so much adrenaline it just felt like a puppy teething.  Its was uncomfortable but it didn’t hurt.  The second bite got my hand, and that still didn’t really hurt but then he locked onto my thumb.  That one was enough to make me realize I probably shouldn’t let him keep biting me, but I still didn’t quite register the appropriate amount of pain.

By the time I got the dog calmed down, the driver of the car (who felt awful but there was really nothing she could have done to avoid him, so it wasn’t her fault) and another lady had arrived to help.  They called animal control and helped me contain and comfort the dog.  (We made sure someone was holding him at all times but he didn’t make any attempts to run and seemed content to just wait) The dog was laying in a normal alert position like this:

700-00159669 © Alison Barnes Martin

Weirdly enough, seemed relatively ok.  He was alert and didn’t have any obvious injuries.  There was blood on one side of his mouth and he had some dreadlocks that most likely formed from scraping along the asphalt but I was shocked there wasn’t anything huge that I could see.  He coughed a couple times but he didn’t appear to be in pain.  He wasn’t whining or licking at any areas.  I knew he probably had serious internal injuries, but I couldn’t get over how ok he seemed.

Like I mentioned earlier, he had a punctured lung.  Animal control took him to an animal ER Vet and they got him stable and found his owners.  He is expected to make a full recovery.  He was one tough dog and I am so thankful he is ok.  He got super lucky (I don’t think any of the tires hit him, and it was an SUV so it had a fairly high clearance for him to go under)  I don’t really care about any of my own injuries, I am just glad he is going to be ok.

A lot of people have asked me what type of dog it was, and I am awful with dog breeds, but my best guess is some kind of border collie mix?  I randomly found this picture online and it looks a lot like him:

As for my own injuries, I am also expected to make a full recovery.  The bite on my arm was through my hoodie so it was relatively protected.  It looks the worst of all the bites but its mostly just bruising and the scrapes are very shallow.  I have a puncture wound on top of my hand and on the crease of my wrist.  These were deeper and caused my hand to swell, but the Dr. doesn’t think I have any tendon damage.  I have recovered most of my finger movement and I can type again without pain. The bites on my thumb are the worst.  There is a deep puncture wound right on the pad and then smaller ones on my cuticle and just above my knuckle.  Even a week after the incident I still can’t really move my thumb and it is constantly in pain, but its not broken and the Dr. said that I wouldn’t be able to move it at all if there was tendon damage, so I just need to give it time to heal.  I have learned that puncture wounds hurt like hell but they don’t look that serious once you get them cleaned up. They can be very deceiving.  I wasn’t able to use my left had at all for 3 days but after the first day they didn’t look like anything more than a small scratch.

While we were waiting for animal control my adrenaline started to wear off and I got really dizzy and nauseous so one of the ladies called an ambulance (even tho I told her not to) The paramedics came and got me cooled down and cleaned off.  They had me call my mom (who lives like 5 min from where I was) to come and get me.  They said I should go to the ER but I ended up just going to Urgent Care.  At Urgent Care they cleaned me up further, took X-rays of my hand, and bandaged my wounds.  They also gave me a tetanus shot, a brace, and antibiotics.  They told me to wash and wrap my wounds twice a day and then follow up with my regular Dr. in 48 hours.  My regular Dr. said to keep wearing the brace but I didn’t need to keep everything wrapped.  He checked for tendon damage and doesn’t think I have any.  Now I just have to let it heal.

Here are the pictures of my injuries.  The pictures on the right are from the day of, and the pictures on the left were taken today (one week after the originals)

Overall, last Wednesday was super rough.  Until I knew that the Dog was going to be ok I couldn’t talk about anything related to my injuries or the accident without bawling.  I am doing much better now that I know he is going to be ok.  I ended up taking Wednesday off of work and only worked a couple hours on each Thurs and Fri.  I couldn’t use my left hand at all and it was just too hard to work (I type a lot in my job)  I still can’t use my thumb and am still in the brace, but I can at least type at an almost normal speed. And like I said before, I am just glad the dog is ok ❤