Oscar is a cat, owned by Kate Allan and Mike Nolan, who lives on the Channel Island of Jersey. In 2009 Oscar had both hind paws severed by a combine harvester. Since then he has undergone a pioneering operation to add prosthetic feet. The treatment has since been considered for use with humans.
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In October 2009, at the age of two and a half years, Oscar had both the paws of his hind legs severed by a combine harvester while in a maize field near his home in Jersey.[1][2] The legs were cut between the ankle and the foot.[3] Oscar was later found by a passing cyclist[1] who then brought Oscar to his owners' home. Mike Nolan, an IT manager in a bank,[4] was at home when the woman brought Oscar; he said that at this point Oscar was covered in blood, and he was convinced the cat would have to be put down.[1] He and Oscar's other owner, Kate Allan, took him to their local veterinarian[2] Peter Haworth.[1]
Peter Haworth, a vet at the New Era Veterinary Hospital, dressed Oscar's wounds and administered cat painkillers making him comfortable within minutes.[1][5] Haworth then referred Allan and Nolan to the Surrey-based neuro-orthopaedic surgeon Noel Fitzpatrick.[1][3] There was a lot of communication between the Irish surgeon and the Jersey owners. After looking at x-rays and pictures Fitzpatrick decided Oscar would be an ideal patient partly due to his young age.[1] Oscar was then flown to the United Kingdom mainland by air cargo although he had to stay in his box for eight hours during the journey.[1]
Oscar's owners did a lot of "soul-searching" before deciding to go ahead with the operation.[6] Kate Allan later said that the cause for her uncertainty was that the kind of operation planned had never been done before.[1] Although the operation carried out by Noel Fitzpatrick was a world first, it mimics a natural process, being similar to the way deer grow antler bones, in the manner that the implants grow through the skin.[1][6] The implants were both custom-made to fit into holes drilled into Oscar's ankle bones.[5][7] They are known as intraosseous transcutaneous amputation prosthetics (ITAPs) and were developed by the head of University College London's Centre for Biomedical Engineering, Gordon Blunn and colleagues.[8] They have a honeycomb structure which enables skin to bond with the implant to prevent infection.[9] The implants are placed into the drilled holes which then allow for a "sock" to be fitted over them.[8]
The ITAP technology is currently being tested on humans and a prosthetic has been made for a woman injured in the July 2005 London bombings.[8] Fitzpatrick has said he would welcome a collaborative approach with other surgeons working on human amputations.[9]
The Bionic Vet is a BBC documentary following the work of Fitzpatrick which aired on BBC1 on 30 June 2010.[1][9] The programme showed Oscar walking with prototype feet made for him by engineers at Salford University. Footage not shown on the programme of Oscar with a later set of better-designed feet was uploaded on to YouTube on 18 June 2010.[10] An update video with the vet involved showed Oscar's new feet and explained how they are designed to snap at a break point on the 'blade' rather than within the foot if he gets into difficulty.[11]