Steve Smith
Appearances
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Anything you can find in the wild in the UK, we treat here at the hospital.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Yeah, Miss T. Winkle was one of the Beatrix Potter characters, so a very, very famous hedgehog. And the hospital started off looking after sick and injured wild hedgehogs, so I think that's where we got the name from way back around 45 years ago.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Well, we certainly see lots of hedgehogs. How many have you counted before Louise?
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
They're much-loved wild animals in the UK.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
He had a badly broken forearm. So luckily, I have a small plating kit where he was able to use this absolutely tiny equipment, these microsurgical tools, to be able to put this toad back together again. And, you know, this toad then happily was implanted in his forelimb.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
And they found it by the roadside, and they sort of didn't know what it was, so they're wondering whether they should pick it up. He didn't look particularly well. He was sort of stranded by the roadside, not flying away. And so we had the call, and it sort of came down to the clinical team, to the veterinary team, and saying there's an exotic orange bird. And
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
To my knowledge, there's certainly no exotic wild orange birds in the UK and even escaped pet birds. Orange is not a very common color for a bird. So it sort of made us scratch our heads a little bit, but we were kind of like, no problem. If you can catch the bird, fine, then bring it along and we'll have a look.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
We had no idea from the phone call for sure. So it was quite exciting. It was quite a stir while we were waiting for it to arrive at the hospital. So, no, we were all sort of taking bets and discussing what it could be.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
They caught the bird up in their jacket, put it in their car, in their car boot, and then drove it straight to the hospital.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
The triage nurse, we have a nursing team that were on triage, they went down to the reception and grabbed the coat, brought it down to the triage room. And so when we opened up, this bird flapped out, perfectly fine and bright. And indeed, it was a really large orange bird. But very quickly, we realized, actually, this is a herring gull.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
So this is one of our normal gulls that we have, one of our large gulls, and this is a herring gull covered in this orange substance.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
When we touched the bird and you got this powder on your fingers and sniffed it, you could tell it was obviously the bird, the smell, not the jacket or anything.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
That smelled like curry. Yeah, the whole hospital smelled of curry powder. You came through the door and you felt like someone was cooking. So it was, yeah, really pungent.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Well, that's a really good question. We were discussing that ourselves. So we assumed maybe a big catering plant or one of the big factories that make crisps or curry or seasoning. And they have these big drums and we think a drum may have been left uncovered and he probably got trapped in there. And in the process of trying to get out, this got completely covered in the powder.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Yeah, the bird was bright, was alert, didn't have any gastrointestinal signs and was clearly behaving normally despite some sort of misadventure previously. So we have a washing protocol and you bath them in a nice hot bath with washing up liquid and basically you have to sit there for... probably 40 minutes to an hour washing each feather to try and get the substance off.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
And so you sort of do that as long as the bird tolerates it.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
They are not friendly birds. They probably have the most attitude of any of the birds we see. So especially herring gulls, which is one of our bigger types of gull.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
He didn't enjoy his bath, so it certainly gave us quite the runaround when we were trying to do it. You should see the injuries on the hands from him nipping the nurses and us from the bath.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
By the sixth bath, he did not appreciate it any more than the first, and was learning all the tricks to try and avoid us.