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Paramedic aces prickly rescue
27/03/2008 08:01 - (SA)
Dries Liebenberg, Beeld
Durban - How do you save an enormous porcupine of about 40kg from a swimming pool? Very carefully.
This was the task that faced Chris Botha, paramedic and spokesperson of Netcare 911, after he had received the exceptional call for help from Doonheights Primary School in Amanzimtoti.
When he arrived at the school shortly after 08:00, the porcupine was resting her head in the filter opening, presumably to prevent herself from drowning.
"I realised afterwards that we probably had been just in time," said Botha.
He thought the porcupine must have been treading water for hours because they were nocturnal animals.
Botha said: "She had been in the water for such a long time that her quills had become as soft as hair."
However, he donned a pair of special rescue gloves before he approached her.
"I actually felt up to the task because, as children, we had caught many porcupines," said Botha who had grown up on a farm at Shongweni, on the outskirts of Durban municipality.
As a child he had kept porcupines as pets.
"That is how I learned that they're not really that dangerous, as long as you stay on the right side of them!"
When he hauled the porcupine from the swimming pool, she was so weak that she just stood there shaking.
Had youngsters suckling
Personnel brought thick towels with which they tried to get most of the water off the animal's body.
The fibreglass lid of the swimming pool's pump was then turned upside down so that the porcupine could sit in the sun for an hour or two.
"After that she was all bright-eyed again," said Botha.
He disinfected a small cut on the animal's neck.
The SPCA had thought it would be best to set the porcupine free, said Botha.
Judging by her teats, she still had young that were suckling.
The porcupine was released into the thick brush next to the school where children had noticed porcupines in the past.
- Beeld
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