A Parakeet Got Sucked Into a Vacuum Cleaner

Photo via MSPCA

Apparently cats aren’t the only animals with an extra life to spare.

After an eight-year-old parakeet got sucked up into a Shop-Vac vacuum cleaner last week, doctors from the MSPCA’s Angell Animal Medical Center saved the winged creature from meeting its untimely death.

When “Birdie” the parakeet’s owner, Marie Margarone of Milton, went to do some cleaning, she had no idea that the exotic bird had crawled inside the vacuum. After turning it on, she quickly realized that her feathered friend had been whipped up into a “violent” frenzy inside the canister, breaking its wing and causing damage to its tiny body. A spokesman from the MSPCA said Margarone knew something was wrong when she saw feathers blow out of the vacuum’s exhaust. Then she opened it to find the bird barely conscious.

Doctors said Birdie “was bloodied, barely conscious, and unable to move” when she arrived at the animal hospital’s Emergency and Critical Care Unit, where two board-certified avian and exotic veterinarians, Drs. Brendan Noonan and Elisabeth Simone-Freilicher, worked diligently to bring the bird back from the brink of the beyond. Over the course of an hour-long operation, doctors had to remove 25 percent of the bird’s wing, but they managed to get Birdie back on her bird feet and to her owner the next day.

“She’s a member of my family just as my other pets are, and I wanted to do everything I could to help her,” said Margarone. “I’m thrilled to have her back in our home where she belongs, and obviously we’ll ensure she stays well clear of the vacuum from here on out.”