Two Baltimore County children didn?t realize a raccoon they found in a cooler and rushed to a veterinary hospital this weekend was rabid, health officials said.
Two unidentified children between 10 and 12 years old delivered the sick, wild raccoon to a vet in the 7600 block of Belair Road in the Overlea-Fullerton area Saturday around 4:30 p.m., said Shawn Kelly, an interim health department spokeswoman. They told vets they had no physical contact with the raccoon ? who died before coming into county custody ? and no exposures have been reported, she said.
Rabies is not uncommon in the county, especially in raccoons, said George Elder, a public health investigator for Baltimore County.
“What was unusual in this case was we couldn?t track backwards,” Elder said. “We knew someone had handled it. We didn?t know how it got into the cooler.”
An investigation Monday revealed the raccoon entered a home through a broken basement window, and an adult male used the cooler to trap it, said George Elder, a public health investigator. The man set the cooler outside, but the curious children passing by peeked inside and took it before he could contact Animal Control.
Rabies last “spread like wildfire” through the region in 1983, Elder said. While rabies is always fatal in animals, the last human death in Maryland occurred in 1976 in Cecil County, according to John Hammond, a spokesman for the state?s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
Raccoons are by far the most common species for confirmed rabies cases in Maryland, according to statistics compiled by the state department, accounting for 245 of 379 cases from January through Nov. 20 this year. Baltimore County ranks third in the number of cases, behind Montgomery and Frederick counties.
County health officials are asking anyone who may have had contact with the raccoon to contact the Communicable Disease Division. But Elder praised the response of those involved.
“Everybody kind of acted like they should have,” Elder said.
