Not many people are willing to go above and beyond to help out injured wildlife, especially those of the small variety, but this Australian woman is one of the few who knew she had to help the tiny, unfortunate frog on her lawn.
Min Tims was mowing her lawn one day when she accidentally ran over the green tree frog native to Queensland. She immediately recognized the frog as one whose species is threatened and protected under Australian law.
Though a chunk of the frog’s head was lobbed off by the lawnmower, Tims sprang into action and contacted a frog rescue that was 500 miles away. She spoke to her niece first, who told the Brisbane Times,
“She was devastated and asked if I could say prayers for him.”
Transporting the frog across the country to Frog Safe seemed like a daunting task, but Rex Airways, an airline, offered to fly the frog with the help of Dogtainers, who custom packaged him so that he would be comfortable and safe throughout the flight. A courier picked up the frog from the airport and, finally, Frog Safe had the tiny creature in their care.
Deborah Pergolotti, president of Frog Safe, told The Dodo,
“We knew that he had an underlying condition because he was out on the lawn during the day, but the wound itself was also infected and the tissues above where the blade had skimmed over the shoulder bone were necrotic.”
Necrotic tissue means the tissue was dying even though the frog was still alive. Before they searched for his underlying condition, they carefully treated his more pressing wounds. Once he was stable, they ran some tests and found that he was infected with two internal parasites. They also observed that he had damage to one of his eyes.
“He’s doing great. The wound has completely healed up and there is a bit of a scar there. His weight has picked up,” Pergolotti said about his current condition. “He is an extremely lucky animal to have survived being run over by basically a blender on wheels and we paid a huge amount of attention to him but he has recovered very well.”
The frog was flown back to Tims, who footed the bill for his travel and medical expenses, and she put him in a fish tank and is keeping him on a special diet. When asked why she went to so much trouble to have the frog taken care of, Tims said,
“Compassion and empathy for all is what the future of this planet is dependent upon. If people can nonchalantly turn away from someone who needs help — including small animals — then we as a species may not deserve to be helped ourselves.”
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