Davet, Traci

[momPaws]

A co-worker's relative just lost a puppy in surgery. The puppy was being spayed...about 6 mos. old and they said it had a heart attack. The do not blame the vet in the least as this is one they've had for years and is well respected. They got pup (Weinreimer) from breeder, vet said could be bad breeding. They are not looking to pin this on anyone but just wondering...How often does this happen?

[JMM]

My almost 6 month old puppy died under anesthesia last spring. He was perfectly healthy. We did bloodwork before knocking him out, he had gas anesthesia only, and nothing was found wrong on his necropsy (biopsied his organs). Just one of those freak things.

[davet]

as the kids now say "stuff Happens" and in surgery you have no reason or answer . In spite of all the presurgical workup you do sometimes there occurs a heart block or a vagal block and things like that that you can't predict nor can you prevent with all the testing...i once had two litter mate cats die after routine surgery...did a post on them and found they both had micro hearts, ie real small hearts the apparantly were not strong enough to handle the anesthesia....you hate it when that happens, you hate it worse when you have to tell the owners, especially when kids are involved..it happens in humans but with humans you have far better monitering equiptment, ie at a cost of about $100'000 which is pretty hard for a solo or group of vets to be able to afford...In the hospital where i volunteer i will hear a code 1, stat OR such and such and about 20 physicians rusht to that OR sometimes the result is good and once in a while it is bad....the human and animal organism is a fragile object...

[momPaws]

Yes, Davet- can understand all you are saying...I guess anytime you put a human or animal under anesthesia there is a risk. They said even the vet's staff was crying...really nice ppl.
JMM- so sorry about your puppy

[davet]

it does shake you up, more so when kids are involved.....

[k9Karen]

I'm really sorry to hear about this pup. I would be devastated if it were mine, or if I worked for the vet. With human surgeries, there is usually an anesthisiologist present whose job it is to do nothing but monitor the patient and make sure all is right with everything - not just the anesthesia he/she has given. They are monitoring the heart beat, oxygen saturation, breathing rate, etc. They are among the best at resuscitation (sp?) if something does go wrong. With animals, I'm sure the O.R. crew is much smaller and as davet mentioned, probably doesn't have the luxury of all the monitoring equipment found in a human hospital. It's always a tragedy when something goes wrong.

[davet]

one other aside comment but i told Corinne this morning at 5 AM, we usually talk best at that hour, about John Ritter and Johny Cash and she mentioned that while we were away a 35 year old male came to the hospital where we work for a routine proceedure and died...the entire hospital was devestated cause he was a well known nice guy..he probably would have had the cardiac arrest at home that day anway but it happened in the OR...as i said bad stuff sometimes does happen

[Traci]

Mompaws, JMM, I'm so sorry, how tragic...

Deaths do occur during anesthesia, although rare. Sometimes there is no simple explanation, sometimes the owners decline a necropsy. It's equally as hard to work with a pet who survived an anesthetic reaction or cardiac arrest and survived, but with brain damage or cns disfunction.

Karen, most vets are equipped with adequate monitoring equipment, techs are trained to monitor for signs of problems, and the entire surgical suite is prepared in the event of an emergency. Sometimes, sadly, as much as we try, we lose one