Results & Initiatives Story
Angel's Story
By Chandra Harris-McCray
Angel’s Story: Perseverance, Power, and Purpose
Emaciated, gnarled, and exhausted, the 2-year-old body of Angel was broken, but her soul was not.
Black gums and cold, boney, barely-there legs put Angel, a Tennessee Walking Horse, at death’s door. But she stubbornly refused to go through it. Her liquid brown eyes revealed her indomitable will to live and fight colitis—a raging infection and erosion that took over her colon.
She mustered every ounce of strength and repeatedly knocked the feeding bucket out of her owner Nancy’s hands, interrupting the serious whispers of veterinarians as they discussed her dismal future.
With a tomorrow left in her, Angel’s “look-at-me-I-am-still-alive” attitude caught the attention of the medical team and her owners Jeff Ray and Nancy Yonko.
Angel was placed in a chamber of pressurized oxygen at the University of Tennessee’s College of Veterinary Medicine, the only veterinary college in the country with an on-site hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) chamber. The college and Dr. Steve Adair, associate professor of equine surgery, touted the experimental treatment for its success rate in healing other animals and even people. But no published data existed for horses. Known to improve circulation and aid in the regeneration of the colon’s lining, HBOT proved to be Angel’s lifesaver.
Ten treatments and a month later, Angel had another fight to confront—abscesses in her front hooves.
Dr. Adair removed sections of the front wall of both hooves. After spending another five months at UT’s veterniary hospital undergoing treatment in the hyperbaric chamber, Angel experienced miraculous hoof wall re-growth. Eventually, Steward clogs were used to aid in healing after being outfitted with a series of other special shoes. More of an ingenious concept than solely a product, the plastic molds of the Steward clogs mimic the shape and function of a hoof and are seamlessly applied with adhesive and screws.
With the hooves of some horses so diseased by laminitis, making standing—let alone galloping—impossible, this shoeing technology, which combines plastics, acrylics, screws, and adhesive, is pushing the boundaries of veterinary medicine and giving horses like Angel a second chance at life.
Five years later, Angel continues to show her fiery side in her “party girl” shoes. And she knows just how to say thank you to UT journeyman farrier Dudley Hurst—her “Dr. Feel Good,” who travels to the Murfreesboro farm every six to eight weeks to change her special clogs.
Angel stretched and cocked her long neck from side to side, as if pondering a question, and planted a kiss on the back of Hurst’s neck while he examined her hooves.
“I love you, too,” Hurst called out to Angel.
Originally, it was the love of meeting young women, many of whom love horses, that got Hurst interested in shoeing horses. Indeed his wife, Ruthie, admitted she started talking to him only after learning he was a farrier.
These days it is the love of the latest products and techniques that allows Hurst to be innovative when treating the ailments of horses, particularly their hooves, because “if their feet are not set right, then nothing else really matters,” said Hurst, who was the youngest student accepted to one of the nation’s oldest and most respected farrier programs at Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center.
“You have to look at the whole horse,” he said, “and be able to see and hear what is wrong.
“You have got be a good horseman before you can be a good farrier.”
Dressed in jeans covered by wide-leg working chaps and with a baseball cap on his head marked with a horse farrier company logo, Hurst first assessed Angel’s progress.
Then he took off the first plastic mold to replace it. Unfazed by his maneuvers and shoe-changing kit equipped with a glue gun, filer, and an assortment of power tools, Angel dove in for another sloppy kiss, shifting Hurst’s cap.
“She is nothing short of a miracle,” said Hurst reflecting on how Angel overcame her near-brink-of-death, darker days—which is how she came to be called Angel.
“UT never gave up on her,” Nancy said. “Nor did they just fix her and send us on our way. Gifted veterinarians and staff continue to be there offering her—and us—the best care.”
Restored, Angel pranced her chestnut coat and flaxen mane around the barn after Hurst finished attaching on her new shoes. Once back in her stall, she peered out her window and stretched her nose to the utmost and turned her head from left to right, as if practicing a yoga move.
It is a medical distinction made possible in part by horse owners and UT contributors such as Jeff Ray and Nancy Yonko. After Angel experienced a miraculous recovery from colitis and endotoxemia with the help of UT’s hyperbaric chamber, they wanted to help the college “educate, research, and push science to the next level.” The Middle Tennessee couple worked tirelessly and reached out to horse owners across the country to raise funds to install the latest hyperbaric oxygen chamber at the college.
They continue to support UT’s Veterinary Hyperbaric Medicine Society by contributing a portion of sales from their company, Horseshoe Gift Packaging, which specializes in themed gift wraps, gift bags, and wrap accessories.
Passionate about corporate responsibility, the couple believes that companies have a responsibility to pay it forward, just as individuals do.
“Be creative, just find a way to give back,” said Nancy. “If you have had a positive experience with the College of Veterinary Medicine, share it. If you have ten cents, give it.”
Ray added, “We are tiny fish, but when a whole bunch of us work together, we create a big school.”
For the next year, UT will match dollar-for-dollar gifts and pledges of at least $12,500 to the UT College of Veterinary Medicine. The contributions will help to renovate and expand the Large Animal Hospital to better serve horses such as Angel, along with other farm and companion animals.
“Many people ahead of us helped get the college where it is today, and many more in the next generation will come along behind us,” said Ray, who serves on the advisory board of UTVCM. “This is how good things get done.”
To contribute or learn more about the Large Animal Hospital Challenge Match Program, contact Claire Eldridge, director of development for the College of Veterinary Medicine, at 865-974-6477 or celdridge@utk.edu.