Steve's Story

© 2007, Australian Wildlife Hospital

Part 1: Thursday, 20 May 2004: Steve is a two year-old koala who is currently being treated in our state-of-the-art koala hospital. In some respects Steve is a very lucky koala. This morning, Steve took his first steps in our koala exercise yard after 22 days in our intensive care ward. This is his story.

Steve is a wild subadult koala from Burpengary, in south-east Queensland. Within the last 6 months he had left the home range of his mother to explore the world, as young koalas do, then settle into an area that he could call his own. For some young koalas this may only take a few months, for others, especially young males, it could take years.

For koalas in south-east Queensland, and, in fact, many areas of Australia, this period of dispersal can be the most dangerous of a young koala's life. Even for koalas living in large areas of protected habitat (a rare thing in Australia) this is a dangerous time of their life—they are starting an adventure of discovery that exposes them to many dangers. As they traverse unfamiliar territory they are exposed to predators such as dogs, foxes and dingos, less likely foes like cattle (that seem to have a particular dislike to koalas), territoriality from resident koalas as they move through their home ranges, and misadventure from miscellaneous hazards in the natural environment. But for the less lucky koalas living in or around the fringes of human habitation, the hazards are tenfold: domestic dogs, swimming pools, busy roads, electrical wires, fences, railway lines....the list goes on.

Steve was one of these less lucky koalas: born and raised in one of the most rapidly developing regions of Australia. At around midnight on Tuesday 27 April 2004, Steve attempted to cross the Bruce Highway at Burpengary in his search for safe and suitable habitat, a resource that is rapidly dwindling in the face of ferocious land clearing for residential developments. As he ambled across the tarmac he was blinded by the headlights of a car a second before being struck with unbelievable force by the undercarriage. As his body tumbled along the bitumen the car sped off into the night, its callous driver leaving him to die where he lay.

And dying he was: this is a list of his injuries, the ones that we found anyway: Multiple pelvic fracture, massive soft tissue trauma to the pelvic canal, pulmonary haemorrhage (bleeding), massive facial trauma, lacerated tongue, multiple jaw fracture, maxillary fracture, distal humeral fracture, avulsion of the radial head from the ulnar, ruptured liver, intra-abdominal bleeding, retroperitoneal bleeding, and a prolapsed penis.

Moments afterwards, Steve Janson, a bus driver, was driving home after a late shift and noticed a small ball of grey fur flopping around on the road in his headlights. In a display of compassion unfortunately rare in many humans, he pulled off the road and rescued the young koala from certain death. At 1am he delivered the broken little body to the Steve Irwin Conservation Foundation's koala hospital at Beerwah. Unlike the hundreds of other less fortunate koalas each year in Queensland that are left to die after being struck by motor vehicles, little Steve's luck had just changed.

Within minutes of arrival at the hospital a catheter was inserted into a small vein in his only undamaged limb, and the agonising pain, shock and distress of the last hour dissipated into anaesthetic nothingness.

While Steve slept, we worked frantically to restore his blood pressure, supply oxygen to his tissues and assess the massive damage to his small body. By 3 am his condition had stabilised, but we were faced with the difficult task of deciding the kindest outcome for Steve. Although we had saved koalas in the past with single injuries similar to his, we agonised over whether it would be more humane to euthanase him while he slept. Could we expect a little koala to survive and heal with a combination of such massive injuries? Always a dilemma with such cases is the risk of prolonging their suffering with our knowledge, drugs and technology, rather than reducing it - which is always our aim. Thankfully, in this case, we decided to give him a chance—a young and otherwise robust healthy koala has amazing powers of repair. We knew he would test our skills and resources, but Steve's road to healing had begun.

Part 2: The road to recovery.

For the next two days, a potent mix of narcotic pain killers, antibiotics and fluids were infused into Steve's veins while we planned the repair of the most important injuries: the fractures of his upper and lower jaws.

A koala that cannot eat will soon die. Unlike other species that can call on body reserves of fat and muscle during period of starvation, koalas walk a metabolic tightrope, with very limited reserves. Without a continuous supply of food and nutrients they quickly become hypoglycaemic and dehydrated, their gut shuts down and they die. We needed to repair the jaw fast.

Our friends at Tyco Healthcare and Stryker, suppliers of human medical equipment came to our aid by giving us the essential titanium plates and screws, and instruments necessary to repair the multiple fractures in the lower and upper jaws. Late on Friday night after two hours of surgery the jaw was repaired. Two titanium plates, nine screws and 5 cm of orthopaedic wire were now holding the fragments together, allowing Steve to begin to use his jaws and tongue to swallow a puree of milk formula paste and vitamised gum leaves.

For the next critical two weeks his hydration was maintained by carefully measured doses of intravenous fluids, infection held at bay with antibiotics and gut function monitored and adjusted with special medicines. Through this painful period of healing Steve was kept on a deep padded animal bed in a heated ICU enclosure. Although all his vital signs suggested that things were progressing well, he seemed lethargic and depressed. This is understandable, really, when you consider the enormous drain on his bodily resources to repair the multiple fractures and massive soft tissue damage.

Today has been the turning point where we can now relax a little. This morning our star patient, Steve, awkwardly walked across the grass of our exercise yard and climbed a tree for the first time since his accident. Psychologically, for him and his healing process, this is a milestone: although he reluctantly gave up his short freedom when we returned him to his indoor enclosure, he had once again sniffed the wind, felt the sun on his back, and felt like a wild koala in a gum tree. With a little patience, a little good luck and another month or so, he will be.

Sadly, Steve is one of many patients treated at our purpose-built koala hospital. Some we can save, others we cannot.

Frustratingly, all levels of government seem uninterested in seriously addressing the processes that threaten the lives and welfare of individual koalas, like Steve, and the conservation of the species as a whole. Whilst these threats continue, our hospital, sadly will continue to be busy.