I dont know - Page 1

This evening I came home from work to find that the puppies had broken thru the barrier that kept them in the kitchen and the doggie door outside They had run rampant thru the house As I walked further into the livingroom and started picking up stuff the pups had shredded I saw something shiny and silver. I said whats this? and my son came in and said "Oh, thats mercury" I asked where it had come from because there was alot! seems my son was given a bottle 4-5 years ago from someone at a garage sale. I locate the bottle and it is full of puppy teeth marks, cap is still on it and bottle was empty. Son said it was almost completely full when he set it on the fireplace hearth under his jacket. I had no idea he had this, it had been at the other house all this time and he brought it over here afew weeks ago and had it in his tackle box. At this point I wasnt all that concerned, I didnt know anything about mercury. SO I grabbed my keybpard and started googling. My was scraping the mercury up with a plastic lid and putting it in his hands! I hollered at him to stop and put it in a bottle, then I started read about it. Next thing I did was call the poisont control center, they asked mehow much had spilled and I went and weighed what had been scraped out of the carpet so far and it was 4.4 lbs! She told me to call EPA , epa office was closed so I called the sheriffs dept to get the local EPA guy to call me. Sheriff comes out and photos the items etc, would not touch it or get near it, they do not have the facilities to store or dispose of it, so I have 4.4 lbs of mercury sitting onmy table in a gatorade bottle inside of zip lock bags. I loaded my son, my nephew and myself up and off to the ER we go. Our ER doesnt test for mercury levels and neither does the next closest hospital so they have to send the bloodowrk off and it will be a few days before the results come back. I sent the boys off  so they would not be exposed, I have to stay here, no where else to go. I am on a concrete slab, carpet has to come up as well as the padding for disposal. Local vet is closed of course ( its now 12:30 am)

Talking to the poison control,  I told them about the pups getting into it and they said any of the pups that injest it will die. ER staff( nurses and doctors) said the same. I have searched the web to find canine symptoms to watch for or to see what can be done if anything and I can find no info. My local vets have never even seen a case of Canine Tetnus much less mercury poisoning of this magnatude. The pups are outside to reduce their exposure and all the dogs will be going to the shop tomorrow under the house has been HazMat team cleaned.

I will not let the pups suffer. so my problem is.... do I sit and watch for symptoms and euthanize those that are exhibiting symptoms or the all of them or what? What do I watch for? I am devestated to say the least. I inhales a large lungful of the vapors unintentionally, dizzy, stomachache neusea, headache, lethargy,discomboulation, forgetfullness were apparent within the hour.

I am sure I am rambling, I am totally lost and have no idea what to do. Would happen at the slowest time of the year for my shop, I have had 4 dogs in for grooms in the last week and a half so I am flat broke, cant call the animal poison control

If it aint 1 thing it another :(

anyone have any idea what the symptoms in dogs would be? what I need to watch for etc??

Therese

I would have no idea about symptoms, but I guess if any puppies injested the mercury (maybe none did) you'll know when they become ill.  Then you'll know what's wrong and will take them to the vet for treatment or whatever needs to be done.  Of course you wouldn't let them suffer, but wait to see for sure if they are affected at all before making any decisions.

molly

Shandra, I know its easy for me to say, when its you faced withall this stress, but you need to remain calm. Whatever happened is done and you must go from here. With the texture of mercury being the way it is, there is a very good chance the pups couldnt have got it into their mouths if they tried. As I'm sure you found out that quicksilver is impossible to pick up with your fingers.

If the worst has happened, and the pups have ingested the mercury, you need to try and keep their kidneys from shutting down. An old Vet trick is to force feed the pups some alcohol. If you have some beer or wine, try to force feed each pup 15cc's per 5lbs body weight of the beer or wine. If you dont have a syringe 15cc's = 1 tablespoon. This will help keep the kidneys flushed and working.

It may sound crazy, but keeping them drunk just may save their lives.

Don't wait until you see signs of illness. Do you have any way of inducing vomiting? If you go to the vet, he can put some apomorphine into the conjunctiva of the eyes to induce vomiting. After that, I would give the pups some activated charcoal (Toxiban suspension works best) to diurese them and flush out their kidneys and put them on IV fluids.

Doesn't your vet have an answering service that can contact him when there are emergencies? Don't worry about not having enough money. Ethically, no vet can refuse emergency, live-saving measures for your pups.

Putting salt on the far back on the tongues of the pups usually will produce vomiting (better than hydrogen peroxide). If nothing else is available, go to the nearest all-night store where over-the-counter home remedies are sold and buy some activated charcoal capsules (very inexpensive).

If you can't get several capsules down each pup, open the capsules and dump the charcoal (virtually tasteless) into some canned dog food or hamburger meat and mix well. Do this every hour or so until your pups are able to receive veterinary care.

While I am not a vet, I have worked at many veterinary emergency clinics. If your pups were mine, I would try the measures that I've described. I can't guarantee that they will work--but they can do no harm.

Don't take "no" for an answer!

I sure hope every one involved and the pups turn out to be OK.  Thought and prayers go out to your family and pups.

Here is the number to the Animal Poison Control Hotline. !-877-2ANGELL. Maybe they can advise, good luck.

Shandra,

I would contact your vet immediately.  Unless they swallowed some they will probably be ok.  (I remember playing with mercury when I was a child and I'm not dead yet!) Also, you may want to take caution on who you tell about the mercury spill. Depending on what State (or Country) you are in if the EPA finds out about it they will have Haz/Mat on your doorstep in a heartbeat, quarrantine your house and charge you thousands of dollars for the clean up charge.  There was a woman I believe in Ohio that had a thermometer with mercury break and she called the EPA to find out what she should do.  They rushed over, cleaned it up and charged her $70,000!

I don't mean to scare you, just be careful and get rid of the mercury that's left.

I hope all your puppies are ok.

Don't know if this is applicable, but as a kid I bit and broke an old style thermometer, swallowed the mercury. Didn't have a single symptom and  I'll be 62 in 11 days, so guess it didn't harm me.

Keep us posted and wishing that all puppies are fine. Looks like you've received lots of good advice from the above posters. Best wishes go with you.......

I would think that mercury (quicksilver) is nearly impossible for a puppy to ingest owing to the nature of the metal at room temperature. It is impossible to pick up with one's fingers, and I would hope that it is impossible for a puppy to lap it up and/or swallow it. Yes, I too can remember playing with it as a child and I suffered no ill effects as far as I can tell.

Although mercury is very poisonous, I am not sure that the mere ingestion of it will cause harm as long as it is eliminated quickly. The threat posed by mercury poisoning is from long-term exposure to minute amounts encountered in contaminated food and/or water. 

Louise has great advice for a solution here-please act on it.

Good Luck!

Bob-O

Thanks for the advice. Our local vets usually take turns being on er call but no one was available lastnight, I am fixin to call them, just got off busrun.

I have to have the EPA dispose of it, It is spread all over my carpeting which will have to be properly disposed of, we recovered 4.4 lbs of mercuryfrom the carpeting so far. I am waiting on the guy from EPA to call me right now.

Therese