Parakeet Sucked Up By Vacuum Cleaner…. Breaking News!
With all the news they could have covered, they chose this?
American journalism is dead.
The place was perfect.
“Birdie,” the 8-year-old pet parakeet, was spending the afternoon searching for a dark, quiet space to lay her egg when she found a mysterious, empty tube lying benignly on the floor.
She crawled inside to settle in for the delivery without a clue of what lay ahead.
Her owner, Milton resident Marie Margarone, unsuspectingly flipped on the power switch to the vacuum, sucking Birdie up the tube and sending her into a violent whirlwind of hair and carpet detritus, said Rob Halpin, a spokesman for MSPCA-Angell’s Animal Medical Center.
Birdie was only trapped in the “shop-vac” for several seconds before Margarone noticed — but it was enough time for the bird to lose much of her blood and suffer a severely broken wing, Halpin said.
A barely conscious Birdie was rushed to the medical center after the Feb. 23 incident, where she received pain medicine and diagnostic tests to determine the scope of her injuries.
Veterinarians discovered she had a broken left wing, and would need about 25 percent of it amputated to survive, Halpin said.
Brendan Noonan and Elisabeth Simone-Freilicher, specialists in avian and exotic animal surgery, performed the delicate, hour-long procedure on Birdie’s 5-inch body Wednesday, and held her in the hospital for another day to recover, Halpin said.
“I’m hugely impressed with this small bird’s strength and resolve,” Simone-Freilicher said in a statement.
Doctors were certain Birdie went into the tube to lay an egg when she laid another one in her cage prior to surgery. Both were unfertilized eggs, which are typically thrown out by pet owners.
Birdie has since returned home to recuperate. Though her flying days “are in the rearview mirror,” Halpin said, she will be easily consoled by Margarone’s other pet birds.
“She’s a member of my family just as my other pets are, and I wanted to do everything I could to help her,” Margarone said in a statement. “Obviously we’ll ensure she stays well clear of the vacuum from here on out.”
