Need A Lift?
Posted at 12:25 pm February 28, 2006 by Bob CisnerosMoving Heavy Animals at the San Diego Zoo’s Veterinary Hospital.
There are many similarities between a human hospital and a veterinary hospital. Much of the technology and treatments used are the same. The differences, however, can be quite big. For instance, transferring a patient from one room to another at a human hospital requires a gurney and a couple of hospital staff. What happens when your patient is a sedated 500-pound (230-kilogram) McNeil’s Deer? Moving the deer from the radiology room to surgery can be problematic if you only have three or four staff available.
At the San Diego Zoo’s Veterinary Services Department, we use a specially designed mobile lift to transport and lift animals that are up to 1,000 pounds (450 kilograms)! Affectionately known as ” Daddy Long-Legs,” this lift (see images below) was designed and constructed by the Zoo’s Construction and Maintenance Department and has been extremely useful to our hospital staff on many occasions! We have used the lift to transfer sedated animals such as polar bears, wapiti, pygmy hippos, tapirs, and even Galápagos tortoises, just to name a few.
The benefits are many. When animals are under sedation or anesthesia, time is an important factor. Safety is another factor: human safety, that is. Lifting an animal from the floor or trailer to an operating table can be a lot of strain on the human back. When using the lift, however, all we have to do is connect the animal to the lift and turn the crank. No muscle or leverage is required; ” Daddy-Long-Legs” does all the lifting.
Bob Cisneros is a senior hospital keeper in the San Diego Zoo’s Veterinary Services Department.
A McNeil’s Deer is placed on a tarp, the lift is attached to the outer straps of the tarp, and the deer is hoisted off the ground and placed above a scale that is protected by plywood. After weighing, the lift is used to transport the deer to Radiology for X rays.
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March 1st, 2006 at 11:00 am
Wow, really interesting, Bob. I guess we think that things just get done, but we don’t think about how they get done. It’s so much fun to learn new things about the zoo and all the wonderful animals. Thanks for the great update and, of course, the pictures.
March 7th, 2006 at 5:31 pm
I guess necessity is the mother of invention. I love the glimpses of the ” behind the scenes” world of the zoo, WAP, and hospital. Thank you for sharing your very special work with us.
March 7th, 2006 at 8:27 pm
I once had to take one of my mares to a university in Michigan for major surgery. I’m not sure what I expected, but the mare was lightly sedated, then led in front of a large sheet of metal standing on edge. They ran straps through the metal and buckled them around her body. As they anesthetized her, the metal began to tilt back, and soon it was horizontal with my mare sleeping on top and being prepped for surgery. Slickest thing I ever saw, that tilt table…sounds like your mobile lift is the answer for wild animals that must be sedated for transport. Hats off to the genius inventors in Construction and Maintenance!