Posted on 06/10/2002 8:41:48 PM PDT by Dan from Michigan
Raccoon attacks girl, 6, as she plays with friends
The Associated Press
6/10/02 5:40 PM
GEORGETOWN TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) -- A raccoon attacked a 6-year-old girl in front of several friends, biting her 10 times after jumping on her back.
Samantha Ortiz of Georgetown Township, which is near Jenison in eastern Ottawa County, was walking on a bicycle trail with five friends about 6:30 p.m. Friday when she looked back and saw the raccoon.
She said she moved to the side of the trail to let the animal pass, but it jumped on her back and started biting.
"I put my hand down and it was biting me. It was growling like a dog and biting me all over," Samantha told The Grand Rapids Press for a story Monday. "Maybe he smelled chicken 'cause I didn't wash my hands after I ate."
Samantha said she was scared because her friends ran away when the raccoon attacked.
"I didn't know if it was going to kill me," she said.
When the animal tried to bite her toes, the girl said she put one of her friend's bikes on top of the raccoon and ran home.
Her mother, Dee Cardero, said she was hysterical when she heard Samantha screaming.
"I ran and opened the front door and saw blood all over her," Cardero said.
Samantha had bites on her hands, arms and legs. She was treated at Spectrum Health Butterworth hospital, where she received rabies shots in the area of each bite.
The series of shots will continue for a month, her parents said.
Yes. Not pretty.
As a kid I lived in a neighborhood where, on one side of me there was a man with a pet coon and on the other side was a family with a coon-dog.
The dog owners were always taunting the "coon" neighbor - telling him to make sure that his coon didn't wander out into the yard cause ol' Duke would "have him for breakfast."
One day, sure enough, I was playing out in my yard when I noticed the coon come out from under their bushes.
The coon-dog was across the street and when he saw the coon he immediately started running directly towards him.
I screamed and yelled and went runnng towards the coon - who was now stopped in his tracks watching the dog bear down on him.
I stopped running when the dog reached the coon.
In the blink of an eye, that coon was on the dog's back and his front claws reached around the neck of the dog.
He just peeled the dog wide open - the dog dropped like a rock. The coon continued on his way.
Samantha said she was scared because her friends ran away when the raccoon attacked.
When I was six, me and my friends had each other’s backs.
These kids today are pansies.
Gonna start trapping again tonight. Whatever gets caught gets drowned.......;
Drowned? Yep, drop the cage in a 35 gallon cooler filled with water......
Did they find a hook in the side of their car after they got home?
They showed a racoon being attacked by a mountian lion.
That racoon instantly turned into a threshing machine, and in the blink of an eye, the mountiain lion was trying to get the hell away from the racoon, doing several 4-5 foot vertical leaps, and finally running a full speed to get away.
Pound for pound, there can't be many tougher animals.
A newcomer to our area (in the last 20 years or so) is the armadillo. I'd never seen one close up until one night the dogs went wild--we saw it, trying to dig under the foundation of the house. It turned at the flashlight, and gave the ugliest, most blood-curdling growling snarl...Hub shot it, put on rubber gloves, and took it "away."
Another newcomer in the past 10 years are the black bears (they're cinnamon colored, not sure exactly what their name is, but everyone around here calls them "black bears." They'll eat anything edible around the place, feed, etc., but seem more shy than coons or possums.
Now a coon will drown a dog just like that, will climb right on top of their head.
We have a racoon right now that knocks over the rubbermaid cans, looking for old cat food cans. He comes through the pet flap in the middle of the night... last year it was a pair of them. I already have rabies shots (from a bat encounter,) so I am the one who has to get up and chase the thing off.
No not possums ! I have a nice little patch of strawberries growing in the yard but if I want to eat any, I have to buy them at the store. Did I mention I also have the fattest possum in Clermont County ? Yup, he can barely walk with his fat belly dragging on the ground.
It sure sounds rabid to me.
I think a P22 would fit right into their little hands, and it wouldn't be too heavy or have too much recoil.
</sarcasm>
That racoon on "Wild America" got inside the mountain lions legs, and the mountian lion probably thought he had laid on a table saw. It was pretty damn funny to see the lion doing those frantic vertical leaps.
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