Four-storey fall dog makes ‘miracle’ recovery

Seven-year-old Collie cross Jess with owner Emily Worgan. Picture: Mike Day/Central Scotland News Agency

Collie-cross Jess managed to squeeze through a tiny opening in the window of the third floor flat in Shawlands, Glasgow, before plummeting to the ground. But despite internal bleeding in her lungs, heart tremors, a broken leg and a shattered pelvis, the seven-year-old pooch managed to survive.

The injured pet was rushed to the Small Animal Hospital in Bearsden after police found her cowering in a corner at a nearby bakers.

Her owner Emily Worgan, 26, an accident and emergency nurse at Hairmyres Hospital, East Kilbride, said today: “I was at work and I had a phone call from the police saying they had my dog and she’d had an accident.

“I just completely panicked.

“Jess is pretty much like my baby. She goes everywhere with me, I take her to parties and everything.

“I got the call and told my work I had to go and I rushed to the vets where the police had dropped her off.

“She’d managed to take herself to the Greggs on the main street and had curled up in a corner there where police found her.

“She had never shown any interest in going up to the window, but it had been left open a little bit and she had somehow squeezed herself through it.”

Police officers took the scared hound to a nearby vets before she was transferred to Glasgow University’s Small Animal Hospital in Bearsden to be operated on.

Emily said: “She was sent to the veterinary hospital in Bearsden as an emergency.

“She had internal bleeding, bleeding on her lungs, air travelling around her lungs, heart tremors, a shattered pelvis and a broken leg.”

Although Jess had managed to survive the initial fall, Emily was worried she would have to be put to sleep.

She said: “It was a bit touch-and-go for a while because they thought she may have ruptured her bladder and if she had we’d have had to put her down.

“It wasn’t a very nice time.

“But she’s absolutely fine now. She came home from the hospital after about a week.

“She had to stay in a cage for about six weeks and we had to just let her out to go to the toilet and a she had a sling to let her walk.

“The vets said they were really surprised that she had survived it and how quickly she pulled through.”

Now, little more than three months on from her June fall, the adventurous canine is finally able to run without her sling, and on Saturday was even able to go on her first walk in the country since the accident.

Emily said: “She just had her first walk in the country since it happened.

“She was loving it. I think she’s ready to get out and about again now.

“The vets weren’t able to reconstruct her hip -- there’s no joint now, so there’s lots of hopping.

“But that’s the only thing that’s affected her. She’s been really lucky.

“I think when stuff like that happens you realise how much pets are part of your family.”