The animal was in a run when the package landed on him. The delivery person will not have done it on purpose, says owner Roeland Vreeswijk Broadcasting Flevoland. “But it was a reckless action. It could also have been a child.”
The drama unfolded before the eyes of the owners when they arrived home. “Okkie dragged herself in and let everything go.”
The owners took the badly damaged bunny to a specialist doctor. “He took pictures and determined that the rabbit’s pelvis had been broken and that this must have been caused by a large blunt object,” said Vreeswijk. The doctor saw no other option than to put Okkie to sleep.
When they returned home, the Vreeswijk family heard from the boy next door that he heard a thump and a screaming rabbit that afternoon. The boy next door would also have seen the parcel deliverer standing in the run with the box in his hand. A security camera filmed the delivery person returning half an hour after throwing the box over the fence to put the heavy package somewhere else.
Sadness
“My wife is really sad,” says Vreeswijk. “We don’t know how long Okkie was under the package. If the delivery person had walked a short distance and placed the package on the bench, we would not have had this.”
After Vreeswijk reported it to PostNL, a manager of the delivery person came by. “We had a nice conversation, he apologized. All veterinary costs are also reimbursed. But it doesn’t bring Okkie back.”
Vreeswijk would have liked to find a message from PostNL on the doormat when he got home. “There is of course a lot of pressure on those guys. But at least put a note in the mail that something went wrong.”