The After Hours Squirrel

      Approximately three hours after the clinic had closed and we had long stopped taking animals, the two other interns and I discovered that the front door hadn't been locked when a pair of older women came in with a cat litter pail. The three of us walked out of the infirmary into the lobby and the women with the pail said they had found a squirrel under a tree being circled by birds. None of us moved, we were caught like a deer in the headlights. Or four fawns in a bathroom. Eventually, I spoke, realizing that neither of the others were going too, I tried to say that we were closed, we had stopped taking animals hours ago, and we were just interns and were not trained yet in how to intake anything that wasn't just orphaned. The women replied that they both had cats and dogs at home and that the squirrel wouldn't last the night there, so they had planned on leaving the squirrel on the porch- right under the "don't leave animals on the porch where predators can get them, come back in the morning" sign. realizing that we had to just do our best, and one of the other interns grabbed the mammal intake form while the other intern and I took the squirrel into the exam room.
     The squirrel was alive, alert, awake, and enthusiastic to bite a finger. We had all done standard intakes before, and I had watched a supervisor assess a blue jay with the same type of injury a few weeks before. The squirrel indeed had a lower spinal injury, it's back legs and tail were limp. I remembered the pain killer we had used on the jay, and according to the chart, it was good for mammals too. Seeing that the other interns weren't moving to do anything I picked up the squirrel and told someone to put the basket on the scale and tare it so it could be weighed for the proper dose. I filled out all the observation paperwork and then called our supervisor who had long since gone home to double check that I was correct about the medicine. She affirmed I should use Medacam and told me the standard dose for an adult red squirrel. I remembered how the other supervisor had prepared the syringe for the blue jay and did the same thing. With another intern holding the feisty guy in two gloved hands, I was able to give him the painkiller, and we could put him in a proper enclosure.
     I had tried to tell that women that we were just interns, that I didn't know what I was doing.
     I guess I lied.