This story was originally published on my vet school blog, “Wet Cleanup on Aisle 5.”
Last night I went to see The Cove, a documentary about dolphin slaughter in Japan. I had an entire box of Kleenex with me, many of which I ended up using, but not because of the movie.
I walked in and my friend Mark, who owns the theater, said, “Oooh, you’re a vet type, come look at this.”
He took me outside to a little drainage ditch and shined a flashlight into the 6″ wide PVC pipe that emptied into the ditch. The entire opening was blocked by a raccoon head.
“We heard screaming earlier,” Mark said, “and when we pulled all the rocks away this is what we found. We poked him, but he didn’t move… maybe there’s another one behind him that was doing the screaming?” Mark ran off to take care of theater business and left me in charge of the raccoon. “Don’t get bit!” he called over his shoulder.
I poked the raccoon’s head and got no response, and its eyes were unseeing. Looked pretty well dead to me, but I got a pair of gloves–raccoons are a huge vector for rabies in our area–just in case. I reached under his chin and pulled the little guy out.
He was about the size of a house cat, fairly young, and he didn’t move at all when I touched him. “You’re brave,” Mark said, popping back over to watch. I set the raccoon down on the grass and checked the drainage pipe, but didn’t see any other raccoons. Mark and I chatted a bit, and then I glanced down and thought I saw the raccoon take a breath.
“Whoa! Did you see that?”
We waited for what seemed like an eternity, and then we saw the chest rise and fall again, almost imperceptibly.
I sprang into action and straightened the airway, then started massaging the raccoon all over. The raccoon let out a few gasping breaths.
Mark and I both have emergency medical training, and when we saw that, we both thought “agonal breaths.” These are gasping breaths that occur right before death, and they can last anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. I’d never seen them except in a person, but I had a vague recollection that this sometimes happens with pets during euthanasia. Still, where there’s breath, there’s hope.
Mark grabbed a heat lamp and a warm box, and I kept massaging, inventing raccoon CPR on the fly as best I could.
I worked on him for about an hour, but didn’t get any more than sporadic breaths. The last twenty minutes were surely an exercise in futility, and at some point, I got the distinct feeling that the raccoon was saying, “Let me go.”
I packed the little guy up and took him over to the clinic. I hadn’t felt a pulse, but I wanted to use the stethoscope to be sure. Nothing.
And that’s when I finally needed the Kleenex–alone in the clinic, just me and the most beautiful little raccoon you have ever seen. How lucky was I to be that close to such perfection? The tiny paws, that bandit’s mask, the petal soft fur.
I cried as I thought of his last few hours… he must have crawled up the pipe and been unable to turn around. He would have seen light just beyond the rocks, then exhausted himself while screaming and clawing for a way out. Poor little baby.
I also cried because the whole experience was incredibly reassuring. I’m halfway through my thirties, and really, what am I thinking, trying to get into vet school at this stage? Things like this remind me.
I’m doing this because it feels right. I’m doing this because I want to make a difference. I’m doing this so that a little raccoon can feel loved during his last few breaths on this earth.
Good night, raccoon.
