Amara the Rhino has special surgery to fix her leg

Meet two-year-old Amara.

She is a 800kg southern white rhino who recently went through a revolutionary medical procedure - to fix her broken leg.

Amara was play fighting with other rhinos at Knowsley Safari Park where she lives when she broke a bone in her front right leg.

To fix it, she needed ground-breaking medical treatment- the first of its kind recorded.

A large team of vets, surgeons and specialists came together to help Amara

Knowsley Safari and the University of Liverpool’s Leahurst Equine (Horses) Hospital joined forces for ultra rare veterinary procedure. 

There were no previous known examples of surgeries to help a rhino with this type of injury, so the team at Knowsley had to bring in specialists to figure out how to help.

A group of equine surgeons were brought in as it was thought that the body of a horse was the most similar to that of a rhino.

The vets worked together to assess how to best treat Amara and then again to carry out the surgery.

A cast, like the ones used on humans (but a bit bigger), was put on Amara's leg while it healed

Amara was put to sleep so that a team of 10 surgeons, zoo keepers and equine specialists could perform surgery - it lasted five hours.

They then put a cast on her leg to hold it in place while Amara recovered.

As nothing like this had been tried before the team weren't sure if the surgery would work.

Dr David Stack, Senior Lecturer in Equine Surgery at the University of Liverpool, explains: “We were unsure if the cast would be strong enough and how Amara would cope with such a restriction on her limb.

"We hoped that she would accept it and that she would be able to move around, get down and, importantly, back up again but this was unchartered water.”

Amara is now fully recovered and back outside with her mum and friends

A few weeks later Amara's cast was removed.

After a couple more weeks of recovery time indoors with her mum Meru, Amara has made a full recovery.

She is back running around with the rest of her friends.