Ouch!

Updated July 4, 2024

That was the first thought that ran through our heads when we learned of the plight of little Pegasus. Although not named at the time, for that was to come with the speed with which he flew into our hearts, he had fallen from a fast-moving vehicle on the busy Tullamarine Freeway, a major thoroughfare that connects the heart of Melbourne with its airport and the north.

Although bad luck landed Pegasus there, it was no doubt a better option than the one that faced those who completed the journey. But bearing the hallmarks of his ordeal was his little body. His head and jaw received the worst of the trauma. With serendipity at hand, or rather hoof, this incident was to play out but a stone’s throw from our good friends at the Animal Referral Hospital in Essendon Fields.

With his jaw gaping painfully open and his little head swelling, emergency treatment was effected. Moments later, our kindness team was dispatched, and little Pegasus was winging his way to sanctuary.

X-rays were to reveal the full extent of his connection with the bitumen road, showing several pieces of gravel embedded in his tiny jaw. Yet undeterred, dear Pegasus never missed a beat with his bottles, despite our thinking he may need to be tube-fed.

Now fully recovered, only the slightest thickening of his jaw remains. However, whenever Pegasus’s tale is retold, it never ceases to remind us of the connections of empathy we have with the vulnerable and the precious. For the one word we hear, over and over, is “ouch.”

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