This is probably not what you need to see just before going into surgery — vultures loitering outside the hospital window.
“I’ve had patients tell me, ‘Doc, it’s not very reassuring,’ ” joked John Kroner, a surgeon at Orthopaedic Hospital of Wisconsin.
Up to a half dozen turkey vultures are spending their days on ledges and windowsills of the three-story glass and brick building at 575 W. You’ll never see a TV commercial showing vultures circling a hospital. (“We help our patients to carry on, while our vultures help themselves to carrion.”)
But everyone here is getting a kick out of the visitors, which showed up about three weeks ago after ignoring the building the past 17 years. Pairs of birds have been given names by the staff, including Ricky and Lucy and Obama and McCain.The birds are brownish with bald red heads and have a wingspan up to 6 feet. They favor the pre-op rooms on the third floor.
“He sat right there for like 20 minutes,” Carole Vaughner said, pointing to the window. The Milwaukee woman was about to undergo knee surgery, and here’s this buzzard keeping a hungry eye on her and pecking at the glass. But it didn’t worry her in the least.
“One lady was actually kind of upset about it. She thought it was a bad sign,” said nurse Cathy Burns.Turkey vultures pose no danger to humans, though they have been known to engage in projectile regurgitation of semi-digested meat when threatened. That’s an experience you wouldn’t soon forget.
Come fall, these migratory birds will head south.
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