Miracle baby wombat saved by two Adelaide men’s heroic C-section

TWO young men have been hailed as heroes for performing what could be South Australia’s first emergency roadside wombat C-section. SEE THE VIDEO

TWO young Adelaide men have been hailed as heroes for performing what could be South Australia’s first emergency roadside wombat C-section.

Dmrenzo Kotze, 21, and his friend Chris Dimasi, 20, of Craigmore, were driving down a Blanchetown dirt road when they found a dead wombat lying in the middle of their track on Saturday.

RESCUER: Dmrenzo Kotze, one of the baby’s quick-thinking saviours.

Upon stopping to move the wombat to the side of the road, they noticed tiny movements within the mother’s tummy.

“We could kind of see something moving inside ... we thought we could see what we could do because (we thought) it could be a baby,” Mr Kotze said.

The quick-thinking pair dashed home to grab a knife before returning to the mother to effectively perform what was an emergency C-section.

While Mr Dimasi performed the “surgery”, Mr Kotze captured the procedure on video.

“Chris did the C-section because he works at an abattoir,” he said.

“It was actually more comforting to see the baby was moving (so) we were happy to do it.”

Mr Kotze said it was “exciting” to see the tiny wombat, who weighs just 247g, alive and well.

“We wrapped it up and took it to my house and gave it a wash to try and get as much dirt and everything off it,” he said.

Friends put them in touch with Jane and Phil Budich, of Blanchetown, who are members of Fauna Rescue SA.

Ms Budich will now care for the orphan, who she says is in good health despite his ordeal.

“They (wombats) are normally 3kg when they’re born out of the pouch ... but he was pink with no hair and probably needs another 2.5kg in weight,” she said.

“He’s on four-hourly (milk) bottles day and night.”

Ms Budich has named the baby wombat Whisper after the horse whisperer’s property the boys first took the orphan before it was passed on to her.

She said Whisper would have been “dead within 24 hours” if it weren’t for his heroes.

“The boys did an absolutely excellent job — I cannot commend them enough,” she said.

“I can’t thank them enough for what they did and how they did it and how gently they did it.”

For now, Whisper will sleep under a heat pad in the Budich’s lounge room until he is big and strong enough to be housed in an enclosure and then eventually released in the wild.

There was another amazing rescue story last month, when the Sneath children plucked a baby joey from the pouch of her mother, who was killed by a car outside the family’s farm at Dingley Dell, south of Mt Gambier.

Originally published as Miracle baby wombat saved by two Adelaide men’s heroic C-section