Posted on 11/06/2004 6:39:34 PM PST by mhking
NEW BRAUNFELS - Comal County health officials were searching for two teenagers who were seen playing with a sick bat that tested positive for rabies.
The boys were using the bat instead of a bean bag in a game of hacky sack, in which players try to keep a bean bag off the ground by kicking it to each other, Comal County Health Department nurse Karon Preiss said.
The teenagers ran away after a nurse saw them, told them to stop and called Animal Control officers. The bat tested positive for rabies at the Texas Department of Health laboratory.
It was not known if the boys touched the bat with their bare hands or if they were bitten or scratched, the San Antonio Express-News reported Friday.
The rabies virus affects the central nervous system of warm-blooded animals and can be transmitted through the saliva of infected animals.
Rabies can be prevented with a vaccine after initial exposure, but health officials can do little for victims once symptoms set in.
The earliest symptoms often are tingling or numbness in the limb or area where there was a bite, followed by a lack of coordination, agitation, headache, hallucinations and seizures. Eventually, the patient goes into a coma and dies.
Just damn.
If you want on the list, FReepmail me. This IS a high-volume PING list...
Is this the sports section of the darwin awards?
How long does the rabies virus last once the bat is dead?
I'm tellin' ya, soccer is evil. Just evil.
Sounds like Beavis and Butthead.
That's going to be one hurtin' vampire when he wakes up.
Some kids should be locked up until they are about 25 for their own protection. I thought everyone knew you are not supposed to touch sick bats or skunks or possums or foxes or coyotes or stray dogs, etc etc etc.
The article says the bat was SICK, not dead. Sounds like the teenaged boys were sick, too.
Who was more sick, the rabid bat or the boys?
So the sick b******s may be infected from torturing a sick bat?
Darwin never sleeps.
Duhhhhh
Are there any Stupid Awards given?
Just the other night, I saved a woman and her dog from a rabid raccoon. She had to have those awful shots in her stomach -- but that sure beats the alternative. The truth is, children should be taught not to ever go near wild animals that could be subject to rabies. It is a terrible way to die.
Rabid Animal PING!
NEW BRAUNFELS PING
"I thought everyone knew you are not supposed to touch sick bats or skunks or possums or foxes or coyotes or stray dogs, etc etc etc."
Well, they were being so cruel they probably didn't give it a thought if the bat was sick. Some young gal died recently, she'd encountered a bat and got a very slight scratch from it, she thought nothing of it, it didn't even break the skin. But she got rabies and died.
I called NJ Animal control after my daughter (DESPITE MY WARNINGS) got a wee scratch from a stray cat. The fellow told me I was not over reacting to call and to watch the cat for 10 days and if the cat was still OK it was ok. So we did that and she was fine.
I HOPE she remembers that lesson, but I will remind her yet again. I used to always pet stray cats, but now I won't go near them. Dogs, bats, all the rest were right out from the start.
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