As It HappensKentucky nurse gives CPR to drunk baby raccoon she found drowning in a dumpster
When Misty Combs found a baby raccoon, drunk on fermented peaches and drowning in a dumpster, she knew she had to try to save it.
As a nurse, Combs was well aware of the risks of interacting with a wild animal in distress. She could get attacked. She could even get rabies.
But when she saw the little critter — sopping wet, unconscious and wreaking of booze as its mother paced frantically nearby — her caregiving instincts kicked in.
“I decided, hey, I’m going to save him,” she told As It Happens host Nil Kӧksal. “I would do it again.”
‘It smelled like it had drunk all night’
Combs works for the Letcher County Health Department in Whitesburg, Ky. That’s where she was on Aug. 14, when people started to report a raccoon wandering around the parking lot in distress.
She and her colleagues went outside to check it out.
“We heard noises. It was like little chitter-chatters coming from the dumpster. And it was two baby raccoons.”
The dumpster belongs to a nearby distillery, and was filled with rainwater and bags of fermented peaches leftover from infused peach moonshine.
Combs and her colleagues recognized the furry family. They’d seen the mamma raccoon and her two babies around the building before, usually in the evening.
They figure the animals must have crawled into the bin to feast on the boozy fruits, only to get trapped when the rain started.
“There was a shovel there and I went ahead and got the first baby raccoon onto the shovel and sort of, like, tossed it out gently to its mother,” Combs said. “It ran over and it joined its mom.”
But the second baby was under water and harder to reach.
“I leaned over into that dumpster and I grabbed the raccoon by the tail,” Combs said. “It was not responsive. It was not breathing. It was soaking wet, and it was full of water.”
It also, she says, “smelled awful.”
“It smelled like it had drunk all night,” Combs said. “Like it was at the bar.”
Combs is trained to administer CPR to people, not raccoons. Nevertheless, she sprung into action and started administering chest compressions.
With each compression, she says, the raccoon spit up more water.
“It started coming to, which was a miracle, I thought, because we all thought it was dead,” Combs said.
Raccoon is legal drinking age, says distillery owner
Colin Fultz, owner of the Kentucky Mist Distillery, says he was offsite when a worker called him to say there was a drunk raccoon in the dumpster, and a lady was giving it CPR.
“I thought it was just a joke,” Fulz told CBC. “I said, ‘Oh God, if that guy dies, we’re hurting.'”
Fultz says he’s extremely grateful to Combs and her colleagues for rescuing the animal, who is now doing just fine. He’s asked the city to provide a lidded dumpster so this doesn’t happen again.
After Combs and her colleague revived the raccoon, they contacted the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, who sent an officer to retrieve him.
“We are very glad that Ms. Combs’ quick and compassionate action was able to save the juvenile raccoon and it was able to be released back into the wild,” Lisa Jackson, a spokesperson for Fish and Wildlife told CBC in an email.
“We do, however, want to remind the public that any interaction with wildlife is inherently dangerous and we urge them to contact a trained wildlife professional if they find a wild animal in distress.”
The little guy was taken to a veterinarian, who confirmed Combs’ suspicions that it was drunk, and administered fluids to help it recover from its big night.
Fultz says he spoke to the vet on the phone and was assured the animal is 21 “in raccoon years,” which is the legal drinking age in the U.S.
“So we was OK,” he said with a chuckle.
Combs and her colleagues nicknamed the raccoon Otis, after Otis Campbell, a character on the ’60s sitcom The Andy Griffith Show who was frequently depicted as inebriated.
Wildlife officials brought Otis back to Combs the next day, to allow her the honour of setting him free.
As Otis scampered out of his cage to reunite with its family under a nearby bridge, Combs says he appeared no worse for the wear.
“I guess he may have had a small hangover,” she said. “Hopefully, he learned his lesson.”
