A nurse in Letcher County, Kentucky, found a drunken and unresponsive raccoon in a trash bin and immediately performed CPR on it, ultimately bringing it back to life.
According to a report by WLEX TV on September 4th, the nurse named Misty Combs, who has been a nurse for 21 years, has seen many complex cases but never encountered anything like this before.
One day, Combs and her colleagues at the county health department noticed a distressed raccoon running around the parking lot. They then heard commotion coming from a nearby trash bin.
Combs mentioned that their office is next to a distillery which had some fermented peaches in the trash bin. She speculated that the raccoon had gotten trapped inside while seeking food.
She realized that the raccoon mother was anxiously looking for her babies, hoping to take them to safety. Her maternal instincts drove her to rescue the baby raccoons so they could reunite with their mother.
She grabbed a shovel and managed to rescue the first baby raccoon, which immediately ran off to reunite with its mother. However, the second baby raccoon was found facedown at the bottom of the bin, which was filled with water and peaches soaked in alcohol.
Without hesitation, she grabbed the baby raccoon by its tail and brought it to safety, only to discover that it had lost consciousness.
Combs said, “People around said, ‘It’s dead, it’s not breathing.’ It was covered in water, you could feel the water, so I immediately started performing CPR on it.”
A video captured by a colleague shows Combs performing chest compressions on the baby raccoon and turning it on its side, then patting its back. Although she had never performed CPR on an animal before, she told WLEX TV that she did everything she could to save the baby raccoon’s life.
Suddenly, the baby raccoon started breathing again, but Combs admitted she was hesitant. She was afraid that it might wake up and bite her or have rabies, so she was very scared.
Staff from the local Fish and Wildlife Department then took the baby raccoon to a vet clinic. The vet administered fluids to help the raccoon regain consciousness.
The baby raccoon was eventually returned to the health department’s parking lot, where Combs proudly released it back into the wild for it to reunite with its mother.
According to National Geographic, raccoons are almost everywhere because they eat almost anything. They can be found in forests, swamps, grasslands, and even cities. They are highly adaptable, using their nimble front paws and fingers to find and enjoy various foods, even opening trash bins to eat what’s inside.
In terms of habitat selection, raccoons may live in tree hollows, fallen logs, or attics of houses. Raccoon mothers give birth to one to seven babies in early summer. The babies usually spend their first two months of life in high tree hollows. As they start to explore independently, the mother transfers them all to the ground.
Raccoons living in high latitude areas eat and drink heavily in spring and summer to store fat, then spend most of the winter sleeping in dens. Besides the familiar North American raccoon, there are several other species of raccoons. Most other raccoons live on tropical islands.