Scaling Up

At 61, Bill had started losing his appetite, dropping weight, and experiencing bloating—but his bloodwork came back normal, leaving his care team stumped. The obvious next step was a CT scan to check his internal organs. The not-so-obvious hurdle: Bill is a nearly 400-pound Siamese crocodile with a bite force topping 3,000 PSI.

So Utah’s Hogle Zoo called in the CT experts at University of Utah Health. A team of more than 20 people restrained the 10-foot reptile, gave him a mild sedative, draped a moist cloth over his eyes to keep him calm, and moved him on a custom platform to the U’s radiology department.

Scanning a patient that size took some improvising. “Our table is eight and a half feet long, even with the extension, and his tail was still sticking out a little bit,” says Hassan Bourija, radiology supervisor at U of U Health. Because the scanner table only travels so far, the team imaged Bill’s head, neck, and most of his torso, then flipped him around to do the rest. They also programmed the radiation dose by hand, since his armored skin is far thicker than a human’s.

The scan turned up several stones in Bill’s stomach—normal for crocodiles, which swallow rocks to aid digestion—and no sign of cancer. Back home now, Bill has rejoined habitat-mate Hillary and is eating more, showing more energy, and bloating less.

“Honestly, Bill was a perfect patient,” says Scott Ehrgott, CT technologist at U of U Health.