A nurse in Kentucky has gone viral after performing CPR on a raccoon that had passed out drunk after eating too many fermented peaches.
Misty Combs, who works at Letcher County Health Department in Whitesburg, said her “motherly instincts kicked in” after finding the unconscious animal in a dumpster next to her work.
Combs told Lex18 Wednesday that she had arrived at work when she and her coworkers noticed a distressed mother raccoon searching for her missing babies.
“Our health department is right beside of the Kentucky Mist Moonshine, which is a distillery, and they had put some fermented peaches in their dumpster, and I guess the two baby raccoons had gone into the dumpster and they were stuck,” she told the outlet.
“I went over there, and I was like ‘we have to get them out.’… I guess that was just like the motherly instinct in me kicked in, like I seen that Mama, and she was trying so hard to get her babies back, but she didn’t know what to do.”
Using a shovel Combs removed one of the baby raccoons, which ran back to its mother. The other, however, was unresponsive and lying in a puddle at the bottom of the dumpster.
“Everybody that was around was like, ‘it’s dead… it’s just not going to make it.’ And it was not breathing… it was full of water, like you could feel the water in it,” she told Lex18.
“So, I mean, immediately I just started doing CPR on it.”
The video of the daring rescue was captured by Combs’ coworkers. In the clip, she can be seen vigorously patting the animal on its back before flipping it over and beginning chest compressions. The raccoon eventually regains consciousness.
“The entire time I was doing it, I was sort of afraid that it would come to and eat me up,” Combs said. “You know, raccoons carry rabies. So I was afraid of that.”
The clip has now appeared across numerous news outlets, and been viewed thousands of times.
After reviving the baby raccoon Combs and her coworkers called the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, which took the animal to a local vet. The animal was deemed well enough to be released back into the wild the following day, to the same parking lot where it had been found.
“I was surprised it lived, and so it was amazing to see something that I helped bring back to life,” Combs said.
The Independent has contacted Kentucky Fish and Wildlife for comment.