Vets Helped A Sick Donkey By Giving It 24 Liters Of Cola And Somehow It Worked

I don't mean to shock you, but I'm not a veterinarian. As such, I would have absolutely no clue what to do if someone came up to me and was like, "Yo, my donkey is sick. Can you help us out?" 

I'd probably give it some Advil or a couple of sleeves of saltine crackers and hope for the best.

What I wouldn't do is call for 24 liters of cola, STAT. 

Fortunately for one donkey in the UK, that was precisely what the doctor ordered and somehow, miraculously, it worked.

According to the BBC, Joey, a donkey at The Donkey Sanctuary in Sidmouth, Devon, England was dealing with what is known as gastric impaction. This was causing the poor guy a lot of pain, and it got so bad that he couldn't eat or drink anything.

So how to help him out?

If you said stick a hose up his nose, you're correct, Dr. Barbarino.

A donkey in the UK got a potentially life-saving cola infusion. 

Vets Saved Joey The Donkey's Life With Cola

Once that hose was in place, the next step was to administer the 25 liters of cola. The real deal too. No diet or zero. Heck, poor Joey wasn't even given a Coke or Pepsi option. They just started dumping sugary soda up his nose and into his stomach because he was in such desperate need of calories.

"We administered the cola by putting a tube into Joey's nose, going directly into his stomach," vet Jamie Forrest said. "And then we administered the cola three times a day, over a four-day period to break down the impaction."

I'm glad they thought of this, but I have no idea how they came to it. I would have thought there'd be some medical-grade liquid that could accomplish this same thing, not off-the-shelf cola.

Either way, it worked.

"Joey is back to his usual happy self and he's made a new friend as well, so he's doing really well," the vet said.

All this made me think of was the 1988 unapologetic ET ripoff Mac And Me. The movie is a favorite of actor Paul Rudd who used to show clips of it when he went on Conan and was also a target of Mystery Science Theater 3000. 

This is to say, it sucks.

It contained tons of product placement from McDonald's — which helped bankroll it — but Coca-Cola too.

In fact, the aliens in this  ̶c̶i̶n̶e̶m̶a̶t̶i̶c̶ ̶t̶u̶r̶d̶ movie are fueled by Coca-Cola.

At one point in the film, it even brings one of them back from the brink of death. The exact same way Joey the Donkey was.

So, once again, life has imitated art… or at least a crappy movie.