|
It is very unpleasant to be spit on by a llama, but it sure beats the hell out of being stomped by a zebra! Lewis Davis
For the last few months, I've been working on a private farm for exotic animals. It is a wonderful and challenging job taking care of these beautiful animals. . Of course there have been some mishaps, one day I was spit on by a male llama. Llama spit is perhaps the vilest stuff on the face of the earth.
On October 5, I went in to feed two of our zebras Daniel and Marianne. Daniel is very shy, but Marianne is a very sweet, gentle, very pregnant female. I had put some hay up for them and Marianne came up. I said "hey baby, how's my sweetheart doing?" and she knocked me down, reared up on her hind legs, and stomped me as hard as she could, coming down to where our chests collided. (She weighs between 900-1000 lbs.) Fortunately she moved away and after a few minutes I was able to get up. My collarbone was broken into three pieces, the two main sections overlapping by two inches, trapping a muscle in between. After a week of absolute agony, I had surgery and the bones were separated and then screwed together. I spent a week recuperating only to find that the screws were loose (no surprise to anyone who knows me!). So I had the surgery again a week later and this time they put in a steel plate. Marianne, despite the tabloid title of this page, is not really vicious most of the time. I imagine the attack had something to do with raging hormones and her pregnancy. I went back to work and got fired 3 days later with no explanation. A month later, a car came into my lane during a sudden downpour sending me into a spin. I slammed into the guardrail and rebounded across three lanes of traffic. My car was totaled, I was badly bruised and the other car kept going. Despite the hard times I've been going through, I've found that my main emotion has been gratitude to be alive, to be able to play again, and the realization that we are blessed more than we know for things that we take for granted. Here's Marianne and a few other friends. |
