Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Sometimes veterinary science is as simple as (re)inventing the wheel.
Gamera, a 23-pound African spur-thighed tortoise, came to the Washington State University's College of Veterinary Medicine with a leg so severely burned there was nothing that could be done except to amputate completely.
This could have been a death sentence for Gamera - unable to move and feed himself - until the veterinarians had the brilliant idea to take a walk to the local Ace hardware store and purchase the kind of wheel you might see on a chair or a rolling cabinet.
"We got several sizes to find the right height," Dr. Nickol Finch told the Associated Press.
They glued the wheel on to Gamera's shell with epoxy - which they also got at the hardware store - and set the animal to wander, which he does now with relative grace and ease.
"Nobody knew what we were going to be able to do with him, with burns that (were) as severe as what he had," Finch says in a video released on YouTube. "To see him now, doing fantastic and eating like a little pig, does a whole lot of good for the heart."
Gameral already looked like something out of Super Mario Brothers, with his geometrically spiked shell, but now he does even more so.
The tortoise has had the revolving prosthetic for about a month now, and has been gaining weight and dexterity, and seems to be able to move almost normally.
Gamera is already 12 years old, and will likely live much longer, thanks to the ingenuity of his vets.
"There's a good chance she will outlive me," Finch said.
