A New Bolton Center team’s beat-the-odds surgery means survival for a special horse
Experts at Penn Vet devised a complex surgical plan for 10-year-old thoroughbred Monty, enabling the beloved horse—whose survival chances were slim—to beat the odds.
2 min. read
Monty, a 10-year-old thoroughbred, had survival odds of 10% when the gray gelding’s owners found him bleeding and holding up his front left leg in a paddock at Meadow Spring Farm in Oxford, Pennsylvania. Erika Jo Beck, a local veterinarian who owns Monty with Meadow Spring partners Ali Rawles and Megan Calibey, took X-rays with equipment in her truck. The images confirmed their worst fears; a compound radial fracture. The horse’s large broken radius bone was protruding from his skin. The radius bone is the primary weight-bearing bone located between the elbow and the knee of the horse’s forelimb.
Monty being led back to his stall after a successful surgery.
(Image: Courtesy of David Levine)
Monty was whisked to Penn Vet’s New Bolton Center that evening. The next day, a veterinary team of three surgeons led by David Levine, associate professor of large animal surgery, performed a complex, five-hour operation on Monty’s broken leg unlike any other attempted before, including experimental materials followed by a recovery system unique to New Bolton Center, and more than two months in a body sling.
Even so, Levine warned Monty’s owners that his chances of making it weren’t high.
Monty’s New Bolton Center team needed to devise a surgical plan that had the potential to beat the tough odds for survival with a compound radius fracture. For a closed radial fracture, the success rate is only about 20-30%, at best, Levine says. But Monty’s injury wasn’t closed. It was a compound or open fracture, with the bone protruding through his skin, greatly increasing the risk of infection.
The surgery performed by Levine and colleagues, Holly Stewart, assistant professor of large animal surgery, and Thomas Schaer, associate professor of comparative orthopedic surgery, was intended to give Monty a fighting chance.
“It was a collaborative effort between a bunch of us to get this fracture fixed,” says Levine. “We took out all the stops of what we have available.”
Today, Monty is back home at Meadow Spring Farm, standing on all four legs, regaining his strength and range of motion. Soon, his owners say, he’ll be ready to return to pasture on his own again.
This story is by Rita Giordano. Read more at Penn Vet News.
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