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This story comes from volunteers Randy & Karen Inman.
After a grueling day of animal calls and caring for new patients for
volunteer Karen Inman, the phone rang around 11:45 p.m. It was the
Sheriff's
Office calling to report a dead opossum with babies on the side of
County
Road 208, near Indian Trace Road. Karen and her husband Randy quickly
prepared for another run. They gathered their gear and headed for the
location. Upon arriving they noticed the mother opossum on the side of
the
road. It had a huge puncture wound in its right shoulder and was
bleeding
profusely, and barely alive. The opossum had clearly taken a blow to the
head. She also had severe bleeding from a wound on her nose. One baby
was
dead in the road. Upon further inspection of the area, another dead baby
was
found as well as a critically injured one. Karen hastily grabbed the
mother,
applied pressure to her wound to slow the bleeding, and she and her
husband
rushed the opossum and the injured baby back to their home. At home,
Karen
placed the injured baby in an incubator and stabilized it, while Randy
began
work on the mother. While working with the mother, they found there were
six
other babies in her pouch and were miraculously unharmed. Karen worked
on
stabilizing the mother opossum and stayed with her all night. She was
not
certain it would survive the night. However, she did live, but
unfortunately
the injuries to the baby claimed it later the next day.
For three days the mother opossum continued to be dazed and would not
eat.
Karen was left with the responsibility of keeping the opossum nourished
and
hydrated by tube feeding her. All the while she feared the babies would
soon lose their mother. Each day that the mother opossum lived gave hope
that her wounds would heal and her babies would be alright. Karen named
her
"Miracle". She stayed at St. Johns Wildlife for six weeks recovering
under
Karen's care. Miracle was later released back to the wild with a pouch
of
six healthy babies. It was truly a miracle that she could survive and
still
have all but three of her babies.
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