Nurse in Kentucky goes viral for giving CPR to drunken raccoon

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A nurse in Kentucky has gone viral after performing CPR on a raccoon that had handed out drunk after consuming too many fermented peaches.

Misty Combs, who works at Letcher County Well being Division in Whitesburg, stated her “motherly instincts kicked in” after discovering the unconscious animal in a dumpster subsequent to her work.

Combs advised Lex18 Wednesday that she had arrived at work when she and her coworkers observed a distressed mom raccoon looking for her lacking infants.

“Our well being division is correct beside of the Kentucky Mist Moonshine, which is a distillery, they usually had put some fermented peaches of their dumpster, and I assume the 2 child raccoons had gone into the dumpster they usually have been caught,” she advised the outlet.

“I went over there, and I used to be like ‘we’ve to get them out.’… I assume that was similar to the motherly intuition in me kicked in, like I seen that Mama, and she or he was attempting so onerous to get her infants again, however she did not know what to do.”

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Utilizing a shovel Combs eliminated one of many child raccoons, which ran again to its mom. The opposite, nonetheless, was unresponsive and mendacity in a puddle on the backside of the dumpster.

“Everyone that was round was like, ‘it is useless… it is simply not going to make it.’ And it was not respiratory… it was stuffed with water, like you might really feel the water in it,” she advised Lex18.

“So, I imply, instantly I simply began doing CPR on it.”

The video of the daring rescue was captured by Combs’ coworkers. Within the clip, she will be seen vigorously patting the animal on its again earlier than flipping it over and starting chest compressions. The raccoon finally regains consciousness.

“Your complete time I used to be doing it, I used to be form of afraid that it will come to and eat me up,” Combs stated. “You already know, raccoons carry rabies. So I used to be afraid of that.”

The clip has now appeared throughout quite a few information shops, and been seen hundreds of instances.

After reviving the newborn raccoon Combs and her coworkers referred to as the Kentucky Division of Fish and Wildlife Assets, which took the animal to a neighborhood vet. The animal was deemed effectively sufficient to be launched again into the wild the next day, to the identical parking zone the place it had been discovered.

“I used to be shocked it lived, and so it was superb to see one thing that I helped carry again to life,” Combs stated.

The Unbiased has contacted Kentucky Fish and Wildlife for remark.