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Hugh Collins Contributor
AOL News
(June 25) -- When Oscar the cat was hit by a combine harvester while basking in the sunshine, he lost his two hind feet. That should have been the end of his mobility and maybe even his life.
Instead, this black cat has taken a leap into scientific history with the help of two prosthetic paws.
Noel Fitzpatrick, a high-tech vet in Eashing, near London, fitted metal implants to the bottom of Oscar's legs and attached two flexible pegs to act as feet. Now Oscar is walking, jumping and chasing like a normal cat.
"Oscar was trying to stand within a day of the operation," according to a statement on Fitzpatrick's website. He "can claim to be a truly bionic cat."
Oscar the cat climbs stairs with his prosthetic paws.
Jim Incledon, PA / AP
Oscar the cat lost his two hind feet when he was hit by a combine harvester, but thanks to two prosthetic paws he is now living a full life. Here, he is seen scaling some stairs.
The breakthrough was being able to bond the metal implants into Oscar's leg. Fitzpatrick drilled into the bones in the cat's rear legs and inserted the metal implants to act as ankles. Then he added a substance to encourage the bone and skin to grow over the metal. This skin grew around the metal and formed a natural seal.
"It's just a miracle," Fitzpatrick told the BBC. "If you had metal sticking out of your leg, you would just get an infection."
The miracle did not come cheap. Oscar's paws alone cost a cool 2,000 pounds (almost $3,000), and that doesn't count the expense of the operation itself, according to The Associated Press.
"We had to do a lot of soul-searching, and our main concern has always been whether this operation would be in Oscar's best interests and would give him a better quality of life," Kate Nolan, the cat's owner, said on Fitzpatrick's website. Mike Nolan, her husband, expressed hope that the operation would help spur innovation in human medicine.
It's not unusual for pets to pursue an active lifestyle after the loss of a limb. Dogs can even survive losing both their hind legs, provided they can get used to having a pair of wheels where the limbs used to be.
Cats are not so fortunate. Their freer lifestyle, with lots of jumping, twisting and landing, makes it very hard for them to get used to life with only two limbs.
"If a cat has two legs that are damaged beyond repair, it's very hard to keep him going," Mark Johnston, a spokesman for the British Small Animal Veterinary Association, told the AP. "We would generally euthanize a cat in that situation."
This feline can count himself lucky to be at the forefront of veterinary technology. Still, not everything about his operation was space age. The pegs that now serve as his feet are a beige color, while Oscar himself is jet black. Fitzpatrick's solution: heavy-duty black tape.
"The key to all great technology is tape," Fitzpatrick told the BBC.
Filed under: World, Weird News, Science, Tech
