This dumpster-diving raccoon got trashed.
When Kentucky nurse Misty Combs headed into work at Letcher County Health Department in Whitesburg, she didn’t expect one of her patients that day to be a wild animal.
“I’ve had some pretty crazy days on the job, but nothing like this,” Combs told local news outlet Lex18.
Combs and her co-worker reportedly heard a ruckus happening near the dumpster in the parking lot and noticed a panicked raccoon attempting to rescue two of her pups trapped inside.
“Our health department is right beside Kentucky Mist Moonshine, a distillery, and they had put some fermented peaches in their dumpster, and I guess the baby raccoons had gotten in the dumpster and they were stuck,” the longtime nurse explained.
The RN’s “motherly instinct” kicked in, and she knew she had to get the babies out of the dumpster.
“I saw that momma and she was trying so hard to get her babies back and she didn’t know what to do,” Combs told the outlet.
She grabbed a shovel and scooped out the first baby raccoon, who ran to its mom — but the second raccoon was face down in the bottom of the dumpster, which was filled with water and moonshine-soaked peaches.
Combs grabbed the raccoon by the tail and pulled it to safety, realizing that it was unresponsive.
“Everybody around was like, ‘It’s dead, it’s not breathing.’ It had drowned, and it was full of water; you could feel the water, so immediately, I just started doing CPR on it,” Combs shared.
In a now-viral video taken by coworkers, Combs was seen performing compressions on the raccoon’s chest, then flipping it on its side to slap its back.
Combs had never performed CPR on an animal before in her 21 years of nursing, but she told Lex18 that she did what she could in the moment to help save its life.
The raccoon eventually began breathing — but Combs was a little reluctant.
“The entire time, I was afraid it’d come-to and eat me up, and raccoons carry rabies so I was afraid of that.”
Before the raccoon could react poorly, Fish and Wildlife responded and took the animal to the local veterinarian who administered fluids and got the raccoon sober.
Combs and her co-workers named the little guy Otis Campbell, after the “town drunk” character from “The Andy Griffith Show” played by Hal Smith.
The raccoon was later returned to the parking lot of the Health Department, where Combs let Otis back into the wild.
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