The end begins:
Lakeland, Florida — A Lakeland woman is recovering from serious injuries in the hospital after sheriff’s investigators say she was “gang attacked” by five raccoons Saturday afternoon.
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd says 74-year-old Gretchen Whitted was trying to shoo the animals away from her front door when they suddenly attacked.
“When she fell down, they enveloped her,” said Sheriff Judd in a news conference called Sunday to warn the public of the aggressive raccoons.
“She’s literally bitten and scratched from face and the chest all the way down through the legs.”
Raccoons are known to be aggressive when going after food, but the sheriff called Saturday’s attack very unusual.
“Not in all my years in Florida have I known of a gang attack by raccoons on an individual,” Sheriff Judd said.
I can imagine nothing worse than being bitten by a raccoon. My mind can barely manage the image of that creature biting my arms, my cheeks, my chest.
She should have just shot them.
I can imagine nothing worse than being bitten by a raccoon.
There is something worse, you could live in Lakeland, FL
“The police are trying to ID the suspects, but they were all wearing masks.”
Thank you.
“I can imagine nothing worse than being bitten by a raccoon.”
Pitbulls, tigers, piranha, alligators, sharks, komodo dragons…
And if “nothing worse” includes all bad experience and not merely animal bites, let’s talk about cancer, disembowellment, flesh-eating bacteria, leprousy, immolation…
Really, Mudede, for someone who expends so much effort on fanciful wankery you have an awfully limited imagination.
What isn’t being said in the article is that in Fl., raccoons have a high probability of carrying rabies. So, in all likelihood, not only is she recovering from a horrific attack, she probably will have to endure treatment for rabies as well.
Hilarious story.
@4 — Hyberbole is Charles’ main form of communication.
Subtlety is never part of the picture….
Yeah, I suspect the series of extremely painful rabies shots might even be worse. Might.
God, she’s 74. How awful.
When I was a kid, we traveled a lot and spent about a month camping in FL. The raccoons there were basically a street gang and we were on their turf. I saw two raccoons get into a van, steal a full sack of groceries and run off with it on their hind legs. The would menace us at every meal and shooting them with a wrist rocket slingshot would only get them to shuffle off to the edge of the camp site with a look that said “you got to turn your back sometime, sucker”. Bad ass animals. Respect the raccoon!
I wish my teeth were that perfect.
TVDinner, actually, nowadays rabies shots aren’t any more painful than flu shots. The old foot-long needles in the abdomen thing is no more. However, the new shots are very expensive– Granny’s lucky she gets Medicare.
Jump to the 6 minute mark in this episode of This American Life to hear the following raccoon-related segment:
“Some of the scariest stories happen when fluffy, innocent creatures turn murderously evil. This American Life producer Alex Blumberg tells one such story, about a raccoon gone bad. (11 minutes)”
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Ep…
Nice photo accompanying the post, Charles! Those are some perfectly straight gleaming white chompers!
@8, the current rabies vaccination protocol is virtually painless. Wikipedia:
11 beat me to it while I was fappin’ or something, but for post-exposure prophylaxis (as opposed to preventive vaccination), it’s the single dose of human rabies immunoglobulin that is administered immediately (before vaccine) that is extremely expensive.
stinkbug @12, thank you for giving me an excuse to listen to that again! Such a great Hallowe’en story. I am now gripped by total raccoon fear.
All of this was foretold by the classic Aztec calendar that said an allingment of raccoons and opossums would happen this month. The calendar ends after that.
If she was a cat-granny she would have nothing to fear. Her 27 or so cats would’ve easily fended off the raccoons.
She must have provoked them somehow 😉
raccoons dont go mean or bad, they are mean mo fo’s . i saw them tear a possum to shreads.
Raccoons can be scary bastards, and BIG. People who’ve only seen the juveniles don’t realize how large the adults can be. I was backpacking out on the coast one time, and had a racket of squabbling and growling and snarling wake me up. I sat up and growled really loudly, and got back a GRRROWL that froze me in my sleeping bag. I thought I’d pissed off a bear. I finally nerved myself up to look outside, and there were a dozen HUGE raccoons trying to get my foodbag (which was tied up in a tree in the proper manner). I put on a poncho, and ran around flapping it, banging pots and pans, and yelling, and they sort of raised a single eyebrow and went, “um, yeah, that all you got?” The only thing they were even remotely afraid of was my flashlight. I finally gave up trying to shoo them off, went back to my tent, and stuffed kleenex in my ears so I could sleep.