<a title="By Steve Ryan [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AFlying_Squirrel.jpg"><img width="256" alt="Flying Squirrel" src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/32/Flying_Squirrel.jpg/256px-Flying_Squirrel.jpg"/></a>
Okay, this is stupid. I admit it right up front! People, DO NOT pick up a wild animal!
The other evening Katty came to the door with her latest offering, a flying squirrel. It didn't look too hurt, and it was so little and CUTE --- I lured Katty away with a can of Little Friskies, and then got a glove and went to pick up the little critter.
It scampered up my leg like it was a tree, up my back and onto my head! When I tried to grab it, it leaped to a porch post. The next time I made a grab, I came away with a handful of miniature Tasmanian Devil!!!
It bit through the glove on my right hand and took a good bite of my nearby, exposed left hand. Then it wriggled loose and skittered away into the lilac bush. Okay, you ungrateful little ****! Good luck on your own!
But that isn't the end of today's SQUIRREL SAGA.
I was left with two bleeding fingers.
DO SQUIRRELS CARRY RABIES?????
It was 8 in the evening, so PromptCare had just closed. I called my clinic's Tele-Nurse. She was all excited: "Go to the ER & get a rabies shot!!! It's a wild animal; it could be carrying rabies!"
While I had been waiting for Tele-Nurse to come on the line, I had googled the subject. I found the very knowledgeable blog of an ER nurse of over 30 years experience, who in his spare time is a "squirrel rehabilitator," who has been bitten countless times and never even had an infection --- heck, my little squirrel should have been incarcerated in a maximum security unit! He reassured everyone that:
#1: Squirrels do not carry rabies. They don't associate with animals that do, and if caught by one, they'd be eaten.
#2: He's never seen a case of human rabies caused by a squirrel bite.
That was good enough for me, but then the Tele-Nurse comes on and starts up with the ER & rabies shot!
So, instead of driving 15 minutes to the nearest ER, get checked in (with a $25 co-pay & billing to my insurance company), and then have them turn me away because YOU DON'T NEED A RABIES SHOT! --- I called ER and asked, "Do I?"
The woman who answered the phone put me on hold while she went to find out. She came back with good news. No, the CD protocol (we have a lot of those lately due to the Ebola scare) was NO RABIES SHOT NEEDED FOR SQUIRREL BITES. Squirrels are not rabies carriers. She'd even checked with a doctor on duty that night.
WHEW!
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