URGENT! Please help with info

[Azure Hanyo]

...After reading this... I will not be taking my birds to the vet unless necessary. That is awful. So awful.

[birdvet]

WOW!!! Ok, so, I'm an avian veterinarian and I work with 5 other avian veterinarians and we NEVER take blood samples from the toenails and we NEVER EVER take blood directly from the heart...I have taken blood from birds that weigh 20 grams with no problem...we use the jugular vein and I tend to put these little chaps under a light anaesthetic to avoid stress (bird AND vet stress ), wriggling etc etc. It is generally a safe procedure. That's not to say that the occasional death won't happen, they do and often its due to something underlying. Touch wood I've been lucky though and never lost a bird after routine blood sampling.

Tragic for this poor little bird

[Kim S]

O my God, thats just not possible
I'm so sorry for your friend, losing two precious pets in such a way. Thats just horrible.

[tattoo]

from what I got this morning after seeing Jenn she said the vet did take the blood from the jugular but nicked the air sack and he thinks it got filled with blood and she went into cardiac arrest. they did cpr for 10 minutes but could not bring her back.

question: should he of warned her that this was a risk? was she to young for this? should the vet be responsible for this?

I know she just finished paying for her last week and even paid her off quicker because she felt bad that the bird was alone in a cage at the breeders. It is a big hardship on her in many ways, and money is not easy because we had to take hours away from people in these hard times. The vet didn't charge her for the visit..is that enough? should the vet help with money towards the bird. It is obviously their fault. She would not have done the test if 1)she had known it was a risk, and 2) she had another bird with the liver disease.

she will read this so please advise her.

[Rue]

I'm sorry to hear that it was vet. error.

That was a big mistake to make. But it was a mistake.

I'm very sorry for your friend.

[rebeccaturpeinen]

that is really horrible!! so sorry for your loss...

[birdvet]

from what I got this morning after seeing Jenn she said the vet did take the blood from the jugular but nicked the air sack and he thinks it got filled with blood and she went into cardiac arrest. they did cpr for 10 minutes but could not bring her back.

question: should he of warned her that this was a risk? was she to young for this? should the vet be responsible for this?

I know she just finished paying for her last week and even paid her off quicker because she felt bad that the bird was alone in a cage at the breeders. It is a big hardship on her in many ways, and money is not easy because we had to take hours away from people in these hard times. The vet didn't charge her for the visit..is that enough? should the vet help with money towards the bird. It is obviously their fault. She would not have done the test if 1)she had known it was a risk, and 2) she had another bird with the liver disease.

she will read this so please advise her.

That makes me feel a bit better, I was horrified at the thought of someone taking blood direct from the heart.

Unfortunately there are always risks associated with jugular venepuncture. It is unusual to loose a bird this way and it is not common. The vet is not at fault (from what I can tell, obviously I wasn't there so don't know if the bird was handled incorrectly, how experienced the vet is etc), it is just one of those unfortunate fluke things that happened. As long as all procedures were done according to proper blood sampling standard than blame can't really be put on anyone. The vet is probably feeling absolutely horrible as well. If the clinic is calling itself an exotics clinic it makes me believe that they have at least one vet there who is experienced with these types of animals.

If the bird struggled too much during the procedure the needle might have made a bigger hole in the vein which caused the bleed. Nicking the air sac should not have been a problem, the cervicocephalic air sac is in that region and almost invariable gets nicked with venepuncture from the jugular. It sounds to me like the bird bled out from a hole in the jugular vein. Sometimes they bleed under the skin if the hole in the vein isn't closed properly and you don't notice until its too late. Its a hard one! A horrible horrible fluke accident. The vet is not obligated to pay anything towards the bird. They have done enough by not charging for the consult and their time. As long as nothing was done negligently (and it doesn't sound like it was) then there is probably nothing the vet could have done to avoid the situation.

Hopefully this incident doesn't deter anyone from getting health checks for their birds, especially new bird checks (I gave a spiel in the "Should we take our birds to the Vet" topic - or the topic was something along those lines).

[tattoo]

we got the report from the vet. very hard to read because it is very scribbled. but she did bleed out. her air sac filled with blood and he tried cpr with no sucess.

No one will know if he or if his assistant handled the bird correctly or not because he took the bird to another room to preform the procedure. He admitted he could of caused the death. and after the fact said it is always risky.

doesn't the vet have an obligation (if nothing more to cover his butt) to let someone know that this coud be risky. I understand it was an accident but accidents still have someone liable. I know he didn't it on purpose.. but he still did it and freak or not, the bird died. '

if at my company we make a mistake, we still take responsibity and make the customer whole.

i cant agree that the vet can just blow this off as a opps, i guess i could of done this ... and oh if you want me to still get the blood tested the you wil have to pay for that?

this just does not sit well with me this was NOT nervous bird.. very calm and gentle

[Rrrma]

I hate how even vets can look at an animal as below us. If this was a baby, then what? There would be hell to pay... why not the same respect for a bird? They are just as much as a living, breathing, thinking thing as a baby is.

blah!

[Mona]

Okay, I know of several other "healthy" birds that died from routine vet tests when blood was taken from the jugular vein.

I am not a vet, but I really, really, don't like the idea of taking blood from the jugular vein. I always have blood taken from the toe nail. A lot of vets argue that it isn't as accurate or clean, but if you are doing "Well bird" tests...so what? I'd rather have a live bird with maybe an inaccurate blood test than a dead bird.

We did have one vet here in Seattle that was absolutely amazing on how he handled the birds. He learned from Dr. Speer in California who is considered "the veterinarian's veterinarian" and I did let him take Phinney's blood via the jugular....but it still made me nervous.

People say its rare for birds to die from a blood draw from the jugular, but I really don't think it is that rare. I know about it happening too many times....and it is always awful. I'm sorry about the Quaker.

I am always with my birds when they are at the vet, and the blood comes from the toenail....

Thanks!

Mona