Giant tortoise cheats death
‘We didn’t think she’d pull through’
Published:
A GIANT tortoise has cheated death after having life-saving surgery to remove a bladder stone the size of a cricket ball.
The 13-year-old African spur-thighed tortoise endured three hours of surgery while vets extracted the huge stone.
They said the animal would have eventually died from kidney failure if the enormous stone had not been found. Owner Diane Melville, who runs an exotic pet shop in Aberdeen, said she was shocked when vets told her the scale of Bertha’s problems.
“We really didn’t think she would pull through,” Diane said.
“When the vet told me how big the stone was I was shocked – it explained why she’d been in pain.”
Diane had made an appeal to customers and friends to help her raise the £900 needed for the operation.
She added: “It was life-threatening – we reckon another 12 weeks and she would have died.
Vet Heidi Stenstad, 33, said she had never seen anything like it before. She said: “The sheer size of Bertha meant the stone was big, but even for a spur-thighed tortoise it was huge.
“She was in surgery for over three hours , it took an hour just to get through the shell. We actually had to cut the stone in half to get it out it was that big.”
Bertha has now been reunited with her ‘husband’ Stormin’ Normin, another giant spur-thighed tortoise.
Stormin’ Norman was taken in to Diane’s care after his original owner could no longer look after him.
