In a scene she likened to something out of a Stephen King novel, Rachel Borch was out for a run on a wooded trail near her home when she was attacked by a rabid raccoon. Faced with having no other choice, she fought it off, killing it with her bare hands by holding it in a puddle of water as it gripped onto her hand with its teeth and clawed and scratched at her. Borch, who lives in Hope, Maine, told the Bangor Daily News that her run was lovely, ordinary and peaceful … until it wasn’t.
“Imagine the Tasmanian devil,” the 21-year-old said. “It was terrifying.”
At that point on a path too narrow path for both of them, the raccoon lunged at her. She knew instantly that she was going to be bitten and its behavior as it moved around her feet indicated that the animal was probably rabid. It latched onto her thumb with its teeth and refused to get go, its paws scratching her arms and legs and she screamed. Borch had no idea what to do until she noticed that she had dropped her phone into a puddle. At that point, Borch, a vegetarian, had to do what she had to do.
“I didn’t think I could strangle [the raccoon] with my bare hands,” she said, so, “with my thumb in its mouth, I just pushed its head down into the muck.”
As it stopped moving, she pulled her thumb from its mouth and “bolted as fast as I could through the underbrush,” looking over her shoulder. “It felt like ‘Pet Sematary’,” she said.
'It was terrifying': Maine woman attacked by raccoon drowns rabid animal in puddle http://bangordailynews.com/2017/06/14/news/midcoast/maine-woman-attacked-by-raccoon-drowns-rabid-animal-in-puddle/ …
To find out if the animal was infected, Borch’s father retraced her steps and retrieved the raccoon in a dog-food bag for authorities. They determined that the animal was rabid, so Borch began receiving a series of rabies shots as well as immunoglobulin and tetanus injections. Because rabies is almost always fatal in people once they begin showing symptoms of the disease, Borch would have had to undergo injections in any case. Her final one is due this weekend.
Most city dwellers meet the acquaintance of raccoons on the night before trash days, and the Centers for Disease Control report that they account for more than 30 percent of all rabid animal cases from 1983-2014 (followed closely by bats and skunks). Rabid raccoons are predominantly found along the East Coast, from Florida to Maine. The Maine CDC reported that, as of last week, 20 animals, including raccoons, red foxes and skunks, had tested positive for rabies in 2017.
“I always thought of raccoons as this cute, cuddly forest animal,” she said. “I just will never look at them the same way.” (from)
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