Watching little Hero walk will on two prosthetic legs will break your heart, but this isn't a story of what Hero lost, but instead a story of what he's gained.
"I brought him out here not knowing whether he was going to be going to his death sentence," said Hero's owner Kitty Martin.
Hero was found with frostbite on both of his legs tail in Virginia last April, before Martin rescued him and took him to her all-animal rescue ranch.
"The ones that they say are unadoptable, can't be helped," said Martin.
Martin called vets all around the country, seeing who could help Hero, and ended up making the trip here.
"We almost lost him along the way. He went critical and was in ICU for a day or two, I believe, here," Martin said.
Hero's road to recovery was far from over once he reached Aggieland.
Martin said, "If they felt that it was against his quality of life that he would put down... And I had no idea whether he was going to walk out of here or not, but I loved him that much to take a chance."
And that chance paid off, since Hero's surgery was a huge success.
"We got totally healthy skin to cover the whole bottom of the stump. We also were able to bring the tendons around so that we had a nice cushion so that it wasn't bone on skin touching the prosthetic," said Dr. Ashlee Watts, Assistant Professor of Large Animal Surgery at Texas A&M.
Now Hero has his permanent prosthetic legs, something Martin and Hero's doctors never thought they'd see.
Hero's doing better than anyone expected and after he goes home soon, he should only have to come back for some readjustments to his legs.
"I can't put it into words... This was worth everything..." Martin said.
Martin hopes Hero can work with wounded warriors and children with special needs. ‘He’d be an encouragement to people,’ she said.
Truly Martin's Hero... The little cow that could.
(KAGS - Jan 27, 2014)
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