So, in Fairfax, this 83 year old lady was swimming in a local pond.  Apparently unlike most ponds in the DC area, this one was in a private community and was clean enough to swim in.

Anyway, a beaver came swimming up to her (yes, a beaver) and bit her on the leg.  She swam to shore (along with the beaver) and some passers by hit the beaver with a branch.

When the paramedics arrived, they euthanised the beaver, and took it in to check for rabies.  They took the lady to the hospital too.  Several hours passed.

So now they find the beaver DID in fact have rabies (which explains some of its extremely odd behavior).  83 is awfully old to get anti-Rabies shots, they're painful, but that's what she's going to have to do.

True story.

Fun fact. We don't have rabies, just this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_bat_lyssavirus

Don't pat the bat, even it it's cute.

Euthanised?

Wut?

Do paramedics carry euthenasia equipment just on the offchance someone's past help or did they use a tyre iron?

Is it still a series of 15 painful shots into the belly button?

And I understand that the water-mole, also known as the platypus, has a poisenous spur.  Touch him not.

Nasty, nasty animals in Australia. Best to abandon the place to them.

Males only. Not that sexing a platypus is easy. They're kinda shy.

>> Do paramedics carry euthenasia equipment just on the offchance someone's past help or did they use a tyre iron? <<

This is America.  Everyone has a gun.

I think the treatment is a lot easier these days than injections into the stomach.

Wow. I thought this thread would be about the beaver with the bubonic plague but no, there are *two* diseased beavers running around.

Although this other one is dead. A little girl caught the plague from it but is now doing well (after the hospital initaially had difficulty diagnosing it) and is expected to leave hospital in a week or so. Can't find the link but will look again.

It was a squirrel. SW Colorado.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/mp/14773425/girl-catches-bubonic-plague-from-dead-squirrel/