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Posted on 06/15/2017 2:05:31 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A Maine woman remembered thinking about how beautiful the day was as she jogged through the woods, never imagining she would have to fend off a rabid raccoon with her bare hands, according to the Bangor Daily News.
Rachel Borch was running recently along a familiar trail near her home in Hope, a small town south of Bangor, when she saw the animal in the middle of the path, baring its teeth, she told the paper Wednesday.
When the raccoon ran straight for her, Borch said she knew it was rabid. With overgrown bushes on either side of the trail, there was no way to get around it.
“Imagine the Tasmanian devil, it was terrifying,” she told the Bangor Daily News. “I knew it was going to bite me.”
Borch remembered thinking that if she could hold it down on the ground she might have the best chance of defending herself, but as soon as she grabbed it, the raccoon bit down on her thumb.
Crying and screaming as the rabies-infected creature continued to kick and scratch, the 21-year-old saw a puddle on the trail and managed to drag the raccoon to it.
“With my thumb in its mouth, I just pushed its head down into the muck,” Borch said. She held the animal’s head under the water until its movements finally slowed. Then she ran – shoeless and in hysterics – nearly a mile to her house.
Her father collected the animal’s body in an old dog food bag and her mother immediately took Borch to a nearby hospital for an evaluation and a series of shots. The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that the raccoon’s blood tested positive for rabies, according to WGME.
“She was phenomenal,” Hope Animal Control Officer Heidi Blood told the station. “I don’t know if I would’ve been able to keep my composure and handle the situation the way she did.”
Borch, who is a vegetarian, told the paper that, even though she killed the animal in self defense, she won’t be able to see raccoons as just cute forest creatures anymore.
According to the CDC, the state has tallied 21 cases of rabies this year – 14 raccoons (including the one that attacked Borch), three red foxes and four skunks.
Rabies?
Oh that’s fatal, you don’t want that!
The brain is required for dianosis of rabies, not blood. Coons also carry distemper for your dog, they massacre poultry, and ravage gardens and fruit trees. They have wiped out my chickens, most of which were egg laying pets. My Rat Terrier killed a coon yesterday and two escaped. My old .22 jammed and I used the barrel to prod one as it ran right by me out of a brush pile.
I don’t see why she should be made fun of. Or haven’t you ever listened to that song?
I clocked one with a hedge club once that lunged at me. That resolved the conflict instantly.
I have a .38 Derringer. It really hurts to fire it. I had to make special light loads for it. I can’t imagine how bad .357 would hurt.
Had one roaming the farm one morning - it couldn’t see and was bumping along the fence to get direction. It went into the barn and I pushed it out with a pitchfork so it wouldn’t get to the animals. It had blood coming from its mouth - scared the liver out of me. I popped a Rubbermaid tub over it. My husband and I slid a piece of plywood under the tub and put a weight on the top and called animal control.
They showed up about 1/2 hour later and by that time it had bitten a hole in the tub. I was standing over the tub with my trusty pitchfork in case it made a jailbreak.
The animal control guy thanked me for trapping it but told me never to try such a thing again. My husband was not particularly thrilled with me, either.
I was worried that if it got off our property that animal control would not be able to find it and it might bite someone’s kid.
They told us that they would euthanize it but would not test it for rabies because it hadn’t bitten or scratched anyone.
Yeah, that was a dumb thing I did. But all’s well that ends well.
Jim, Jim, Jim. When you are running with a pistol, the pistol is in your holster. A good, properly sized holster will restrain the pistol when the pistol wants to go all postal on anything.
Please excuse my snark, I know that’s not the way to get people to see the advantages of arming themselves. But-you just watch-Stephen King will next feature a rabid raccoon vs a hapless city slicker who will try to taze the cute little thing.
It was a dark and stormy night when she walked into my office: “I’m in trouble,” she said.
“OK, what’s the deal-i-o,” I asked.
“There’s was this crazed raccoon following me...” her voice trailed off.
“We get these psycho possum/crazed raccoon stories all the time. What makes you so special, “ I asked.
“Well, I had to fight him and drown him in mud. I stuck my thumb in his mouth...” she replied.
“OK. OK.OK,” I replied. “We’ll try for the clemency route — no, wait...I GOT IT! We’ll say he was RABID!”
Just then the phone rang, I swiveled around in my chair, answered the phone and asked the caller to call back in an hour and turned around...
She was gone.
That’s the way it works in this business - a dame needs help with a Procyon, then she flits away.
Somewhere, outside, a dog was barking.
I hate the f***ers. If I see one on my cabin property I kill it. They were purposefully imported into Utah back in the 50s by a bunch of govt idiots.
I thought so too but if people feed them during the day they alter their sleep patterns.
They also carry and shed Baylesascaris, the larva of which moves rapidly to escape the immune system, seeking out the liver, eyes, spinal cord or brain. Occasionally they can be found in the heart, lungs, and other organs.
A coon once ate 3 of our momma cat’s kittens. Raccoons in general are notoriously rapid democrats.
Seems like the gun would either be flapping around or sweaty or something.
Sounds like you’ve go the makings of a short story or a song. :)
Not necessarily. Raccoons are highly susceptible to canine distemper which occurs when raccoon populations explode. They're often seen in the daytime, wandering aimless in circles.
Back in the early 90's, my dad was the chief ranger of a metro park north of Detroit and I and a few buddies used to play their golf course every other Sunday morning. On two consecutive golf outings, we saw up to 6 raccoons on the course just wandering around.
Dad said he would drive the park road and shoot the coons along the highway and let the park maintenance dispose of them.
The coons out in that area had become so over populated that once the virus set it, it quickly spread throughout the population and that was simply nature's way of controlling them.
It's just a cyclical phenomenon and will happen again in due time........
They’re not called “Wild” animals without reason.
I know the actual lyrics to that song are a slam on America, by Canadians, I grew in Detroit, listening to CKLW, a radio station in Windsor, Ontario. However, the overall effect is energetic and rousing. Similar to “Born in the USA’ song by Springsteen. Yes, I’m aware of that paradox.
Had no intention to riducule her. On the contrary, I admire her spirit of survival. Her ‘fight before flight’.
If there’s one rabid animal in the woods, isn’t there a good possibility that there are more rabid animals out there?
“I’ve seen lots of raccoons out during the day ... peacefully minding their own business.”
I have too. I just figured they had insomnia . . .
The gun is in my concealed holster, which is latched to my belt and rides on the waist band of my jeans, between the jeans and my hip . No flapping, gun remains dry.
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