Goat gets miracle operation

DESPITE great pain, Thando the pet goat lay still while the doctor cut her open to save her life.

The "miracle" emergency op was done in a tool shed!

Daily Sun reported that Owner Pastor Mtungwa Mkhatshwa's daughter Thando (7), told him a week ago that the pregnant four-year-old goat was vomiting and isolating itself from the other goats. So they called vet Dr Ben le Grange to their house in Leslie, near Secunda in Mpumalanga.

The doctor said Thando's unborn kid died in her womb and she needed an emergency op to remove the tiny body. But there was no time to take her to an operating theatre.

So he performed the operation in the shed at the pastor's house.

"If we had let the stillborn remain in her belly longer, Thando would have died," said Dr Le Grange.

"It seemed she knew this. That made my job of saving her easier."

Mkhatshwa said: "Dr Le Grange performed a miracle, operating without the necessary tools."

After the two-hour op, Thando was too weak to stand. But the doctor gave her a vitamin injection and said she would be okay in two weeks.

Mkhatswa said he wasn't surprised at Thando's calmness in the emergency. "She's special!" he said.

He said he saw from the start she was smarter than his other goats.

"A couple I was counselling gave her to me when she was two months old. I named her Thando after my youngest daughter, who is seven. She and my daughter are best friends. Her heart would have been broken had Thando died."