The goose with the bad leg

This story appeared on my page on Facebook last week, but for the record, I'm repeating it here.

My first post went as follows:

Chris, with two neighbours accompanying him, is driving a goose with a broken leg to the wild bird hospital. The goose is in a cardboard box with a towel round it. So long as it doesn't get out and flap around in our car, all will be well. 

What had led to this was that a Cathcart Street neighbour, Sandra, with a couple of friends along, had come across the bird in our local park and had approached us when we were out walking, asking for suggestions of what to do about it. Then I'd remembered, from an incident where a small bird had knocked itself out by flying into one of our windows recently (later recovering, I'm glad to say), that there is a place where you can get advice in such situations: the Safe Wings Ottawa website. It gives a "Bird Emergencies" phone number (613-216-8999) which Chris had rung, and the person taking the call had recommended the procedure described above.

When he got home again, Chris added his own description of the experience:

 Just in case you find a goose with a broken leg tomorrow, here's what you have to do.

1. Find some competent women, one of whom has a large towel.
2. Get a large cardboard box, preferably with a lid. 
3. Get one of the competent women to approach the goose carefully and place the towel over its head. It may object to this. 
4. Wrap the goose in the towel and put it into the box. 
5. Do not allow the goose to get out of the box. 
6. Put the box and one competent woman on the back seat of the car. 
7. Put another competent woman who has a GPS app on her 'phone in the passenger seat and allow her to lead you to the place that takes in broken geese. Do not kill and eat the goose although the competent woman in the back, from Iran, will tell you that that is what they do there. 

That led to a few tongue-in-cheek comments from my friends & relations about whether it would have been a good idea, or not, to kill and cook the goose, rather than rescuing it by taking it to hospital.

Anyway, a couple of days later, we got a thank you in the mailbox from Sandra (who rode in the car with Chris) saying,

Good news: the leg was not broken. Instead fishing line was embedded in its leg. It had been there a while, skin growing over it, the leg infected and inflamed. Anouk removed the fishing line. She said it took a long time; [she] administered an antiseptic on it and the next day [the goose was] taken to the wildlife sanctuary. It will take a long time to heal. They were appreciative of our efforts.