Several weeks ago as we were eating dinner a neighbor, who had permission to hunt deer on our property, came into the house scared and shaken. He had been hunting about less than a quarter of mile from the house on our pasture hillside. Much to his dismay, on this day, he had an unfortunate encounter with a raccoon.
He proceeded to tell us of his encounter. About dusk a raccoon crossed the field and came straight to his tree. He tried to "shoo" it off and for a moment it did walk about twenty feet away. He said it then reared up on its' hind legs, looked at him, and proceeded to run directly toward the tree in which he had his tree stand. He yelled at it, but it just kept coming. It climbed the tree, began to bite his boots He then tried to kick it away, but it was determined to get in the tree stand with him. He lowered the barrel of the gun tried to knock it away. When that didn't work he flicked off the safety of his gun and shot it at point blank range in the chest with a 30-06. Fur, dust, and blood went everywhere. As he definitely knew, this just was not normal raccoon behavior.
He immediately came to the house and shared his story. We decided to call the 1-800 number of the state conservative department. They suggested he take the dead coon to be tested for rabies. Within two days he had the report- it was not good. The raccoon had tested positive for rabies.
Not knowing the amount of exposure, doctors recommended he take a series of rabies shots. Believe it or not you can not find rabies vaccine in your local doctors office. Fortunately, he was able to find what he needed in the ER at Erlanger in Chattanooga, TN. He received a series of 6 vaccinations the first day followed by 3 more over an extended period. He did this just to be safe because as he told us that first night, "No one has ever survived rabies".
Fortunately, this story has a happy ending. This young man completed his series of shots and just this past week became the father of a beautiful baby boy. He really had a great deal to live for. And as the old saying goes, "when you wake up in the morning, you just never know what the day will bring" That's a good thing.
