Speaker 1: In October of twenty twenty four, a man in Ohio
Speaker 1: saw a skunk and his kitten ready to rumble. He
Speaker 1: did what I think most of us would do. He
Speaker 1: stepped in grabbed his cat, but in the process he
Speaker 1: was scratched by the skunk. He didn't think much of
Speaker 1: it as a scratch. He didn't seek medical treatment because again,
Speaker 1: it was a scratch. However, weeks later he collapsed and
Speaker 1: died from what appeared to be cardiac arrest. However, his
Speaker 1: cause of death would be called into question only after
Speaker 1: his organs were donated. I'm Danielle, I'm Megan, and this
Speaker 1: is Off the Trails.
Speaker 2: Yikes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this episode's a little bit different than I
Speaker 1: think any of the ones that we have previously. I
Speaker 1: think we've done like a few animal encounter episodes, but
Speaker 1: they're not usually our main jam.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we've dabbled in it, and I know we have
Speaker 3: a few in the queue that we want to cover
Speaker 3: that are more animal related, animal encounter and attack related,
Speaker 3: but we haven't done a whole lot that involved them.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So this topic came to the forefront of my brain
Speaker 1: when we did our last headline episode, and I was
Speaker 1: just like perusing headlines, and I happen to see like
Speaker 1: several headlines like all over the country about this topic.
Speaker 1: And I was like, all right, let me do a
Speaker 1: little bit deeper dive. And since I wrote this episode
Speaker 1: last week, I have now started reading a book about
Speaker 1: the topic.
Speaker 2: I have.
Speaker 1: Disturbed my coworkers, probably deeply with facts that they didn't
Speaker 1: ask for. Literally yesterday, I'm sharing all this information and
Speaker 1: my friends started to back away towards his office and
Speaker 1: I said, hey, hey, do not walk away.
Speaker 2: I'm telling you something.
Speaker 1: And he didn't want to listen to this, but I
Speaker 1: made him, so now everyone can listen to some of
Speaker 1: this information.
Speaker 2: Well, I am intrigued and looking forward to it.
Speaker 3: And you know what, like speaking of animals, yesterday I
Speaker 3: was leaving and my neighbor waved me down, and I
Speaker 3: was nervous because I was scared that, like I was
Speaker 3: being a bad neighbor about something and she was going
Speaker 3: to yell at me cold de yeah, and she just
Speaker 3: wanted to let me know that she saw a coral
Speaker 3: snake between our houses. And she's like, I know you
Speaker 3: have a dog and a cat, and I just wanted
Speaker 3: you to be aware that I saw him and he
Speaker 3: like snuck away before I could, you know, before she
Speaker 3: could do anything about it, which, of course, like I
Speaker 3: don't want to inflict harm on any animals. And I
Speaker 3: don't know how she wanted, how she wanted to address it.
Speaker 4: But I.
Speaker 3: Am a little unnerved now because you know, you never
Speaker 3: want to know that there's like a venomous snake just
Speaker 3: chilling in your yard.
Speaker 2: No, definitely not. Yeah, I'm with you. I do not
Speaker 2: like snakes at all. I don't want that snake in
Speaker 2: my I don't want any snake in my yard. Uh
Speaker 2: the other some snakes are good, though. Some snakes you
Speaker 2: definitely want in your yard.
Speaker 1: I know, but I don't not my guard. They can
Speaker 1: be in my neighbor's yards, that's great and fine, just
Speaker 1: not my yard.
Speaker 2: For some reason, I was going down to my basement.
Speaker 1: The other night to get ice out of the freezer,
Speaker 1: and I thought to myself, as a walking down the
Speaker 1: stairs for no reason, what if a snake got in
Speaker 1: here and there's a snake down here when I go
Speaker 1: down here?
Speaker 2: Like, what why did I do? Why do I do
Speaker 2: those things to myself?
Speaker 1: There was not a snake down there, but I'm like,
Speaker 1: what if I came down here and there's just a snake.
Speaker 3: Your basement is like prime living for snakies.
Speaker 1: It is because it's partially rock cement not not cement
Speaker 1: rock foundation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's yeah, it's like cool, it's it's dank
Speaker 3: down there, like they would love it.
Speaker 1: I think they would so hated that. But you know,
Speaker 1: other than that, it's all right.
Speaker 2: Love it. So as long as you're they're fine.
Speaker 1: I will be purchasing you a ticket to fly up here.
Speaker 1: If there's a snake in my basement so that you
Speaker 1: can help get it out.
Speaker 3: That's totally fine. I think you guys only have one
Speaker 3: venomous snake in New Hampshire. I think that's correct, the timber,
Speaker 3: the timber rattlesnake, I think right, Yes, very low population
Speaker 3: though they're very far and view between up fair.
Speaker 2: I don't want the snake in my house. I know
Speaker 2: this is something that cute.
Speaker 1: This is something I've totally made up in my mind
Speaker 1: and inflicted upon myself.
Speaker 2: But now I think about, I want to go into
Speaker 2: my basement. What does a snake in here? Why?
Speaker 3: I think also seeing them in their natural habitat is
Speaker 3: one thing, but they're startling if they're somewhere that you're
Speaker 3: not you're not anticipating them, in which I feel like
Speaker 3: we've had this conversation before.
Speaker 2: We have. Yeah, So all right.
Speaker 1: So after James Martin, the gentleman that I spoke of
Speaker 1: in the intro, died in December twenty twenty four, his
Speaker 1: family honored his wishes of becoming an organ downer after
Speaker 1: one of his kidneys went to a patient in Michigan.
Speaker 1: Five weeks after the transplant, patient started to develop trumors.
Speaker 1: They developed weakness, confusion, fever, which, obviously there can be
Speaker 1: a lot of complications from a transplant surgery, infections, so
Speaker 1: fever and some of these other things definitely can be
Speaker 1: symptoms of a whole host of medical concerns. But then
Speaker 1: he developed one telltale sign that told his doctors that
Speaker 1: his symptoms weren't caused by any of these comment somewhat
Speaker 1: expected complications from a transplant.
Speaker 2: The man developed an extreme aversion to water. Oh weird, okay.
Speaker 1: Yep, and he died fifty one days after receiving that
Speaker 1: kidney transplant. So do you know what we're talking about today?
Speaker 2: From the little I've given you, it would it be
Speaker 2: a little bit of rabies? Correct? Correct.
Speaker 1: It's one of the oldest and probably one of the
Speaker 1: most misunderstood dangers that don't come at the intersection of
Speaker 1: humans and wildlife interactions. And of course, because I took
Speaker 1: this research way far, some of the earliest accounts of
Speaker 1: rabies related symptoms at least goes back.
Speaker 2: To nineteen thirty BCE. Oh so way back.
Speaker 1: So in some documentation from Mesopotamia in nineteen thirty BCE,
Speaker 1: so way back.
Speaker 2: And I also.
Speaker 1: Again just like really went into this too much, But
Speaker 1: there is evidence that gives historians and folklore experts reason
Speaker 1: to think that at least some of the accounts of
Speaker 1: werewolves or even vampires, that those stories may actually be
Speaker 1: related to cases of rabies.
Speaker 2: Okay, I mean wearable things definitely make sense. The curse.
Speaker 1: You get bit by a wolf and you have all
Speaker 1: these terrible symptoms and end up dying. Yeah, I had
Speaker 1: surface level knowledge of rabies before, but I think it's
Speaker 1: a lot scarier and much closer to us than I
Speaker 1: think a lot of us realize. I was like doing
Speaker 1: the headlines research, and I saw articles about bats in
Speaker 1: California testing positive, a raccoon in New York, a fox
Speaker 1: in Maine, people being treated preventively after finding a bat
Speaker 1: in their house. Just tons and tons of local headlines
Speaker 1: from the past couple weeks or days, just very And
Speaker 1: I don't know if I just happened to catch the
Speaker 1: headlines at the right time where I just happened to
Speaker 1: see them all together and it felt like a lot,
Speaker 1: or if this is normal number of cases being reported.
Speaker 3: I hate that there's such a strong correlation between bats
Speaker 3: and rabies because they are so precious, you.
Speaker 2: Know, bats are like my favorite.
Speaker 1: Only four percent of bats test pust of four rabies
Speaker 1: four percent.
Speaker 2: Four percent, Okay, so yeah, not bad, right, But in the.
Speaker 1: North America at least, the primary uh vector for rabies
Speaker 1: to humans is bats.
Speaker 2: Okay, even though it's all like four percent. So, but
Speaker 2: there's a lot of bats, you know, yeah, lots of bats.
Speaker 1: So before we get into a few of the cases,
Speaker 1: I think we need to kind of talk about rabi's basics,
Speaker 1: because without understanding what rabies actually is and what it
Speaker 1: does to the body, I don't think people get the
Speaker 1: full impact of the virus. As a virus, rabies has
Speaker 1: one job, and that's to get to the brain. It
Speaker 1: gets in through a bite or a scratch or It
Speaker 1: can be contact with any kind of mucous membrane like nose, eyes, mouths,
Speaker 1: any of those places you don't want viruses, or probably
Speaker 1: any interaction with animals.
Speaker 3: Those body parts all sound way better when they're not
Speaker 3: referred to as mucous membranes.
Speaker 2: I know, I know.
Speaker 1: So once the virus gets in your body, it travels
Speaker 1: differently than other viruses do most viruses. They get into
Speaker 1: your bloodstream and then circulate Rabi's It travels through your
Speaker 1: nerves up to your central nervous system. Its goal is
Speaker 1: your brain, and I think one of the scarier things
Speaker 1: that I didn't know about is incubation period. It can
Speaker 1: be anywhere from a few weeks to several months, possibly
Speaker 1: even longer. The longest from contact to symptoms appearing that
Speaker 1: has been recorded at least is almost five years. So
Speaker 1: someone had an interaction with something five years before they
Speaker 1: develop symptoms.
Speaker 3: And that makes it so much more difficult to pinpoint
Speaker 3: the cause of these symptoms someone is having, because how
Speaker 3: do you say, like, oh, you know what, I was
Speaker 3: exposed to a bat five years ago, So that is
Speaker 3: probably why I'm experiencing what I'm experiencing right now. I
Speaker 3: imagine makes it very challenging to sometimes determine like why
Speaker 3: someone is having the symptoms they're having and where it
Speaker 3: came from.
Speaker 1: Right to be like, oh, yeah, twelve hundred days ago,
Speaker 1: I had an interaction with a bat.
Speaker 2: I forgot to mention that, right, or you know, a bat.
Speaker 2: I feel like a bat stands out.
Speaker 3: I mean a lot of animals that you don't typically
Speaker 3: interact with or touch, they do stand out. Like if
Speaker 3: if I pet a raccoon, I'd probably mark that in
Speaker 3: my calendar.
Speaker 2: And you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Like yeah, exactly, like oh my gosh, Like on May twelfth,
Speaker 3: I pet a raccoon and it was wonderful. But you know,
Speaker 3: skunks and all of that, like kind of in your intro.
Speaker 3: It's just that does stand out, but it's it would
Speaker 3: still be difficult to make that connection when so much time.
Speaker 1: Four or five years later, Yeah, I mean even even
Speaker 1: a couple of months later. Yeah, I don't remember what
Speaker 1: I wore or eight or did yesterday, So it might
Speaker 1: be tough to remember what caused these symptoms years down
Speaker 1: the line or months even. Yeah, and during the incubation time,
Speaker 1: the virus is completely silent that entire time, so there's
Speaker 1: no symptoms, no warning until it reaches the brain.
Speaker 2: Then the first.
Speaker 1: Symptoms look like it could be a variety of health issues.
Speaker 2: Its fever, headache, fatigue.
Speaker 1: People might experience in tingling or discomfort at the original
Speaker 1: wound site, and I assume that that would.
Speaker 2: Be if it was a shorter incubation period.
Speaker 1: I don't know that if people are getting symptomes like
Speaker 1: months down the line, that they still have that tingling
Speaker 1: sensation near the wound.
Speaker 2: Maybe they do, I don't know. And this is called
Speaker 2: the prodomal phase, when.
Speaker 1: The body just feels like a vague sense of something
Speaker 1: not being right, like people just don't feel great. They
Speaker 1: don't really have a reason or explanation, which's like I'm
Speaker 1: feeling kind of crappy, not feeling good, and very quickly
Speaker 1: things get worse from there.
Speaker 2: In about eighty percent of.
Speaker 1: Cases, it's what's called furious races.
Speaker 2: Furious rabies develops. You get agitation, confusion, hallucinizations. I don't
Speaker 2: know why I was trying to put a Z in
Speaker 2: hallucin Isn't it just hallucinations, right? But I was trying
Speaker 2: to put a Z in it. I don't know why
Speaker 2: add an extra syllable with the z hallucinizations.
Speaker 1: Yeah, bizarre behavior. Eventually, saliva production increases dramatically, so that's
Speaker 1: where you get like the frothing at the mouth symptom.
Speaker 1: And then there's the hydrophobia or the fear of water,
Speaker 1: which is very extremely unique to Raby's infections.
Speaker 2: That's wild.
Speaker 1: The virus affects the part of the brain that controls
Speaker 1: swallowing and breathing, So when victims are attempting to drink,
Speaker 1: the muscles in the throat literally go into a spasm.
Speaker 2: They're physically not able to ingest any liquid.
Speaker 1: That's those spasms cause choking and the sensation of just
Speaker 1: sheer panic and fear. And in some cases, I's gonna say,
Speaker 1: in severe cases. I think any case of rabies is severe.
Speaker 1: So just any case of rabies people can even experience,
Speaker 1: just hearing or seeing water or liquid even can trigger
Speaker 1: that intense panic. The remaining twenty percent of victims infected
Speaker 1: develop what's called paralytic rabies, and this starts with paralysis
Speaker 1: at the wound site and then spreads upward through the
Speaker 1: body towards the brain. This version is slower and I
Speaker 1: guess less dramatic than you know, the symptoms I just described,
Speaker 1: but ultimately it's still traveling towards the brain and it's
Speaker 1: going to be the same outcome both forms and in coma,
Speaker 1: usually within two to three days of coma onset is
Speaker 1: when death occurs. The total window of time from when
Speaker 1: symptoms first appear to death is almost never more than
Speaker 1: two weeks, so once people show symptoms, it's very quickly
Speaker 1: resulting in death. And once symptoms appear, rabies is considered
Speaker 1: universally fatal, not mostly fatal. Universally fatal, Approximately fifty nine
Speaker 1: thousand people die every year from it globally. Most of
Speaker 1: those deaths occur in Asia and Africa, and in those
Speaker 1: areas it is mostly from dog bites. So in those
Speaker 1: areas there are a lot more stray dogs, almost it spared,
Speaker 1: but that's not stray dogs, just extra dogs I mean,
Speaker 1: which I guess kind of is true as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, spare stray.
Speaker 1: Dogs, you know, and they are obviously not vaccinated, and
Speaker 1: the risk of dogs in those areas of the world
Speaker 1: having radies is much higher. In the United States, we've
Speaker 1: gotten the number of deaths down to one to three
Speaker 1: a year, so very low, and Canada has only seen
Speaker 1: twenty eight human cases since nineteen twenty four, so at
Speaker 1: least in North America, cases are very low, luckily, but
Speaker 1: no matter where you are, once you see those symptoms,
Speaker 1: death is coming. It doesn't It doesn't matter if you
Speaker 1: have access to the best healthcare or no healthcare, you
Speaker 1: are very likely going to die. The number of people
Speaker 1: who have ever survived is so slim that with a
Speaker 1: tiny amount arounding statistically, it still makes it one hundred
Speaker 1: percent fatal. And like I said earlier, in the United
Speaker 1: States and Canada, bats are primarily responsible for the majority
Speaker 1: of human rabies cases, So not those raccoons, not foxes,
Speaker 1: not skunks, not dogs like other parts of the world.
Speaker 2: Even though like all of those animals can and do
Speaker 2: carry rabies here, bats.
Speaker 1: Are the primary concern here, and most bat bites are tiny.
Speaker 2: If you're ever bitten while sleeping, apparently.
Speaker 1: You might never know, like a bat could chomp on
Speaker 1: you and you're gonna sleep right through it.
Speaker 2: Maybe I don't know that I would, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: I wake up on America sleeper like you might just
Speaker 1: note that it happened. Yeah, their teeth are small enough
Speaker 1: that it's not going to wake the average person at least,
Speaker 1: and these bites aren't going to leave a visible mark,
Speaker 1: you know, especially if you don't know anything happened.
Speaker 2: You're not looking for anything.
Speaker 1: So if you see a little red spot on your skin,
Speaker 1: you're not thinking about it at all.
Speaker 2: Probably it's not a dramatic puncture wound. It's like invisible.
Speaker 1: So because of that, the CDC has a recommendation which
Speaker 1: I did not know about until getting into this rabies research,
Speaker 1: that if you happen to wake up and there's a
Speaker 1: bat in your room, you should assume that you have
Speaker 1: been exposed to rabies and seek medical attention immediately.
Speaker 2: And this freaks me out so much because.
Speaker 1: There have been several bats in the house that I
Speaker 1: grew up in. In my bedroom growing up, there were
Speaker 1: several occasions where I woke up and there was a
Speaker 1: bat in my room, including May twenty ninth of twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: Because I went into my camera role, I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know that there was a bat in my room.
Speaker 1: When I was living at my baron's house and I
Speaker 1: found the picture of an adorable bat just hanging on
Speaker 1: the back of my bedroom door, and my son was
Speaker 1: about eight months old at the time, and he was
Speaker 1: clapping as the bat was flying around the room, So
Speaker 1: you know, now, ten years later, I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: we should have gone to the emergency room.
Speaker 2: See.
Speaker 3: But this is why this is educational, so that, yes,
Speaker 3: other people can hopefully take something away from this episode.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: And when I was looking for that bat picture, I
Speaker 1: also found another random close up of a bat in
Speaker 1: a tree that I took, and I'm like, I don't
Speaker 1: even remember this, but why am I so close.
Speaker 2: To all these bats?
Speaker 1: So obviously I did not have proper rabies fear up
Speaker 1: until now. So just so anyone else is aware, especially
Speaker 1: if you live in an old house.
Speaker 2: Or you know a cave, a cave.
Speaker 1: Perhaps there was even a time where a baby bat
Speaker 1: somehow got in the basement of my parents' house and I.
Speaker 2: Did work love, but I.
Speaker 1: Scooped it up and I put it in a box,
Speaker 1: and I called a bunch of wildlife rehab or rescue places,
Speaker 1: and a lot of places this should have been a
Speaker 1: trigger moment for me. A lot of places won't take
Speaker 1: them because of the risk of rabies, and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: well someone's gonna take this baby bat.
Speaker 2: You're like, I guess I'm your mommy, now right.
Speaker 1: Eventually I did get my nephew's uncle. He does humane
Speaker 1: like animal removal, so he came and took the baby
Speaker 1: bat and got the baby bat to a point where
Speaker 1: he could release the baby bat.
Speaker 2: But that's incredible.
Speaker 1: Typically rehabs and things of that nature, they typically do
Speaker 1: not take bats because of the high rabies risk. Okay,
Speaker 1: because these interactions with the bat or the you know,
Speaker 1: physical contact with the bat result in nothing of note. Really,
Speaker 1: many cases of human raby death deaths in the US
Speaker 1: the person didn't even realize they'd been exposed, or you know,
Speaker 1: just dismissed the interaction because they didn't feel a bite
Speaker 1: or scratch or anything like that. There was recently a
Speaker 1: woman in Wyoming who woke up with a bat in
Speaker 1: her room, as I have, my parents have on several occasions,
Speaker 1: at least I won't say many several occasions, and for
Speaker 1: this woman, the bat was gone by the morning. She
Speaker 1: didn't seek treatment, and she ended up dying of rabies,
Speaker 1: oh my goodness. And more than two dozen people who
Speaker 1: had contact with her during her illness then had to
Speaker 1: be evaluated and treated. And most of these treatments are
Speaker 1: preventative because again, once you have symptoms, it's too late.
Speaker 1: So anyone who is receiving the rabies vaccine or treatment,
Speaker 1: it is out of an abundance of caution.
Speaker 2: Typically.
Speaker 1: There was another woman in South Carolina who found a
Speaker 1: bat again in her bedroom. She shook it out through
Speaker 1: the window and she decided she really hadn't had direct
Speaker 1: contact with it.
Speaker 2: She also didn't seek treatment. She did end up calling.
Speaker 1: A bat removal service because I'm guessing she assumed that
Speaker 1: that's were living in the eaves of her house or
Speaker 1: the chimney or something of that nature, and she didn't
Speaker 1: want a bat inside her house again, which is reasonable.
Speaker 1: But in this interaction with the removal service, they didn't
Speaker 1: mention the risk of rabies to her. And I don't
Speaker 1: know if she didn't tell them that the bat there
Speaker 1: was a bat inside her home and that what prompted
Speaker 1: this call, but it sounds like there was no oh, hey,
Speaker 1: you probably should seek medical treatment after that, and this
Speaker 1: woman also ended up dying.
Speaker 2: You're unlocking a new fear. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: I you know, I go through my days saying, Megan,
Speaker 3: you don't have enough anxiety. I think you should find
Speaker 3: things to be anxious about. And you've delivered. Thank you,
Speaker 3: You're welcome. So you know, these were not reckless people
Speaker 3: in anyway. They were literally sleeping in their own.
Speaker 4: Homes, and they just assumed that if they had been
Speaker 4: bitten or scratched that they would have known, which again
Speaker 4: I think is an assumption that most people would make, like, oh,
Speaker 4: I don't have any visible wounds, I don't have bleeding,
Speaker 4: I don't I didn't feel anything.
Speaker 1: So I think that's an easy assumption to make that
Speaker 1: you were not in contact with the bad enough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and again, any of those women could have been be
Speaker 1: or my family, because you know, we just opened the window,
Speaker 1: got the bat out. I think one time my dad
Speaker 1: like had broom and shoot it out. Now I'm like,
Speaker 1: we are psychos, just bat handling. Oh god, I feel
Speaker 1: lucky to be alive. Actually, I'm gonna tell them. I'm
Speaker 1: going to have a discussion with my mom later. I
Speaker 1: don't think she's aware of these bat uh concerns.
Speaker 3: I'll just send her this episode and like, you take
Speaker 3: an extra hard listen to this one.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, next, some is a bat in your house.
Speaker 2: Evacuate please.
Speaker 1: Bats currently carry Raby's in every US state except Hawaii.
Speaker 2: And my love for bats has not changed.
Speaker 1: And most bats are completely healthy and they're enormously beneficial
Speaker 1: for the environment and ecologically. So we're not bat shaving,
Speaker 1: we're not giving shade to bats, but we do.
Speaker 2: And a bat outside doing bat things in the sky
Speaker 2: not a concern. We love it. We're here for it.
Speaker 3: Like bath houses like we want them around. We love them.
Speaker 1: But I actually I have on my cabinet rate above
Speaker 1: where my computer is. I have they wore Halloween bats
Speaker 1: actually from two years ago when when you were here
Speaker 1: and we put the bats up all over. Well, those
Speaker 1: two are still on my cabinet, just a year round.
Speaker 1: I'd love bats, but real bats inside your dwelling are
Speaker 1: a different situation than the general bat environment outside. The
Speaker 1: Post exposure prophylaxis or PEP is a series of four
Speaker 1: vaccines shots given over two weeks, and if you get
Speaker 1: it before symptoms start, it works pretty much one hundred
Speaker 1: percent of the time. So if you get these preventative vaccines,
Speaker 1: you're pretty much in the clear. If you don't and
Speaker 1: you develop symptoms, you are pretty much guaranteed to die.
Speaker 1: And if you interact with the bat, there's a ninety
Speaker 1: six percent of the time that that bat does not have.
Speaker 2: Rabies and there's no risk.
Speaker 1: But if you don't seek medical treatment and that bat
Speaker 1: happened to fall in the other four percent does have rabies,
Speaker 1: it is very likely that if you were scratched or bitten,
Speaker 1: you were going to die.
Speaker 2: Not to be dramatic, but it's very it's pretty dramatic.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's statistics.
Speaker 1: It's correct. I'm about those numbers, you know it. In
Speaker 1: September of two thousand and four, in Wisconsin, a fifteen
Speaker 1: year old girl named Jenna Geiss was at church with
Speaker 1: her family and during the service, a that was flying
Speaker 1: inside the church and one of the ushers kind of
Speaker 1: like swatted it down. And Jenna was an animal lover.
Speaker 1: She asked hermage, like, hey, can I take this bat outside?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: Her mom was like, yeah, sure, I guess.
Speaker 1: So as she carried the bat outside, it bit her
Speaker 1: on her index finger. She did feel it because obviously
Speaker 1: she's looking right at her hand, I'm sure, and it
Speaker 1: hurd for a minute, but that was kind.
Speaker 2: Of it, you know.
Speaker 1: She went home, she washed her hand, she treated it
Speaker 1: with the hydrogen peroxide, and that was kind of it.
Speaker 1: Her family didn't realize the danger associated with bat bites
Speaker 1: or interactions, and they didn't seek medical attention. Thirty seven
Speaker 1: days later, Jenna started to develop symptoms, tremors, trouble walking.
Speaker 1: She was quickly admitted to the hospital and she was
Speaker 1: eventually transferred to the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin. And that's
Speaker 1: when doctor's there started to have their suspicion and they
Speaker 1: asked her family about animal exposure, and that's when her
Speaker 1: mom was like, oh, yeah, there was a bat in
Speaker 1: church just over a month ago. Soon the CDC was
Speaker 1: able to confirm that it was Rady's and Jenna's death
Speaker 1: was statistically a certainty. At this point, there were no
Speaker 1: known survivors of symptomatic rabies in patients who had not
Speaker 1: been vaccinated beforehand. Obviously, people who frequently interact with animals
Speaker 1: of all kinds like vets, ranchers, you know, people work
Speaker 1: day to day with animals. They're typically getting vaccinations in advance,
Speaker 1: probably as you know, just a routine vaccine schedule.
Speaker 2: But the rest of us are not being annually.
Speaker 1: Vaccinated for rabies like we take our pets to be,
Speaker 1: or should be. Everyone should be doing that. A pediatric
Speaker 1: infectious disease specialist named doctor Rodney Willoughby had a theory
Speaker 1: rabies doesn't actually destroy brain tissue. The brain is largely
Speaker 1: physically left intact. It's not like it's physically attacking the brain.
Speaker 1: If that makes sense. Yeah, it's basically all neurological disruption.
Speaker 1: The brain becomes overwhelmed rather than physically destroyed. So this
Speaker 1: doctor proposed putting Jenna in a medically induced coma. The
Speaker 1: hope was that it would slow brain function to a minimum,
Speaker 1: perhaps buying enough time for her own immune system to
Speaker 1: kick in and fight the virus in combination with you know,
Speaker 1: anti viral medications and things that they were trying. There
Speaker 1: is no widely accepted rabia's treatment protocol currently. Obviously, if
Speaker 1: you have symptoms, they're going to try a whole host
Speaker 1: of things. But the expectation is that once you have symptoms,
Speaker 1: it's too late. But against the odds, within seven days
Speaker 1: of this medically induced coma, the virus was gone from
Speaker 1: her system. Two weeks later they brought her out of
Speaker 1: this medically induced coma and they were not sure what
Speaker 1: the prognosis was going to be. Yes, there was no
Speaker 1: longer evidence of the virus in her body. But this
Speaker 1: was unprecedented territory, so they had no idea. Was she
Speaker 1: going to be mentally physically functional. They didn't know, but
Speaker 1: they brought her out of the coma and she woke up.
Speaker 1: This process of the medically induced coma became known as
Speaker 1: the Milwaukee protocol.
Speaker 2: Her recovery was not easy.
Speaker 1: Her brain had swelled and her body took a lot
Speaker 1: of damage. She spent seventy six days in the hospital
Speaker 1: and ultimately needed extensive physical and occupational therapy to just
Speaker 1: relearn basic functions. But she did end up graduating high
Speaker 1: school the honors. She went on to go to college,
Speaker 1: and you know, ultimately was able to live a pretty
Speaker 1: normal life. She said, she still loves bats, so she
Speaker 1: doesn't blame the bat. And although this medical protocol worked
Speaker 1: for her, there have been variations attempted on dozens of
Speaker 1: other symptomatic rabies patients worldwide since two thousand and four,
Speaker 1: but they all have still died. There are few who
Speaker 1: did survive, but there's some controversy over if they truly had.
Speaker 2: Rabies.
Speaker 1: I guess there's some CONTROVERSI who are like, oh, like,
Speaker 1: were they really experienced in symptoms or you know, had
Speaker 1: they been exposed not got that initial treatment and then
Speaker 1: at some point sought treatment, but truly the raby symptoms
Speaker 1: hadn't kicked in, if.
Speaker 2: That makes sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like, were they actually cured of this or were
Speaker 3: had they already sort of dodged a bullet per se, right.
Speaker 1: Or had it not actually progressed to where the symptoms
Speaker 1: were fatal?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Pretty much all of these people who did die, they
Speaker 1: were they certainly had rabies. Some of these people who
Speaker 1: survived variations of this protocol, It's like, well, did they
Speaker 1: did they really qualify as having rabies?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: And it's believed that it might have worked for Jenna
Speaker 1: because of whatever the specific variant of the virus was.
Speaker 2: It just happened.
Speaker 1: To where are my words today?
Speaker 2: I think you've been pretty good until now.
Speaker 1: You know this, this particular variant was treatable with the
Speaker 1: protocol that they used. Maybe this variant wasn't super aggressive.
Speaker 2: And also she was.
Speaker 1: Pretty young, so a lot of times the younger you are,
Speaker 1: the more resilient our bodies are, and that may have
Speaker 1: been a huge benefit for her that her body was
Speaker 1: just young and kind of could get through that and recover.
Speaker 1: But even the doctors involved in her treatment. They say
Speaker 1: that there was a lot of luck in her surviving.
Speaker 1: So even though made medical history, they were still like,
Speaker 1: yeah this, I mean, we did a good job, but
Speaker 1: it was mostly luck.
Speaker 2: So we got lucky.
Speaker 1: As of twenty twenty six, there is a slim number
Speaker 1: of known rabist survivors in human history. Estimates I saw
Speaker 1: were between twenty and forty five people. And that's like
Speaker 1: in all of known history. And again, records of brabies
Speaker 1: and brabies really symptoms go back to nineteen thirty BCE.
Speaker 1: So for all of the cases of brabies that have
Speaker 1: come since then, to have only.
Speaker 2: Even if we.
Speaker 1: Say fifty people worldwide survive, that's crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1: So let's go back to the organ donor case, the
Speaker 1: Michigan man who never knew he had rabies until it
Speaker 1: was Wait, was he from Michigan?
Speaker 2: Hold on?
Speaker 1: I wrote over here that he was from Idaho. The
Speaker 1: intro says Idaho, and now I wrote Michigan down here.
Speaker 2: I wonder where he's from. I think he's from Idaho.
Speaker 2: It was a second. I'm sorry, I'm scrolling through. Okay, Oh,
Speaker 2: you're fine.
Speaker 1: Yes, the original person was from Idaho. The kidney went
Speaker 1: to a man in Michigan, where where my own confusion
Speaker 1: came from, So James Martin from Idaho. There were other
Speaker 1: donors besides the man in Michigan who got the kidney,
Speaker 1: who had received graphs weeks earlier and were not experiencing symptoms,
Speaker 1: but one of the tissues' samples did end up test positive,
Speaker 1: testing positive.
Speaker 2: For rabies, and that case there was.
Speaker 1: That case is the fourth documented instance of rabies being
Speaker 1: transmitted through organ transplantation in the United States since nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy eight. Going back to again two thousand and ar and,
Speaker 1: a man from Arkansas died of what appeared to.
Speaker 2: Be a brain hemorrhage.
Speaker 1: He had no signs of rabies and they had reason
Speaker 1: to even suspect it. His lungs, kidneys, liver were donated
Speaker 1: and patients in Texas, Oklahoma, and Alabama received his organs well.
Speaker 1: Then thirty days, three of those recipients developed inflammation of
Speaker 1: the brain, and when they all saw their doctors and specialists,
Speaker 1: they were like, we don't really know what's causing this inflammation.
Speaker 1: They all started to rapidly decline. They lapsed into comas,
Speaker 1: and eventually they would die. The fourth recipient did also die,
Speaker 1: but they died of surgical complications, but based on the
Speaker 1: fate of the other organ recipients, I think that this
Speaker 1: person's fate would have been sealed either way.
Speaker 2: That's awful. The medical teams.
Speaker 1: Were baffled by these deaths, at least of the three
Speaker 1: who died for unknown reasons, so they reached out to
Speaker 1: the CDC and they quickly started looking back at the
Speaker 1: organ donor and that's when they discovered that it was rabies.
Speaker 1: The CDC called it the first known case of rabies
Speaker 1: transmitted through organ donation in the US. WOW in twenty eleven,
Speaker 1: it happened again. A twin year old Air Force recruit
Speaker 1: died in Florida and it was undiagnosed rabies. His organs
Speaker 1: went to trans went to recipients in four different states.
Speaker 1: One of the kidney recipients died, and luckily, in this instance, the.
Speaker 2: Cause was figured out pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: I don't know how they determined that it was rabies
Speaker 1: quickly in this case, but they were able to then
Speaker 1: notify the other organ recipients and they were able to
Speaker 1: receive post exposure treatment, so no one else died. And
Speaker 1: obviously you're thinking, Okay, why aren't we screening for rabies
Speaker 1: before we're transplanting organs.
Speaker 2: There is all kinds.
Speaker 1: Of testing that goes into screening donors and organs before transplantation.
Speaker 1: But because rabies in humans is very rare, routine screening
Speaker 1: just doesn't happen. Testing can be complex, and it takes
Speaker 1: more time than is available. The majority of organ or
Speaker 1: tissue transplants have to be done within a few hours
Speaker 1: of the donor's death. So if there's no reason to
Speaker 1: suspect that this person has died or been exposed to rabies.
Speaker 2: They're not. It's not something we're they're looking for. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, like you know, Elizabeth Holmes, as fraudulent as she was,
Speaker 3: she had the right idea of just this all encompassing
Speaker 3: like testing of just your you know, your blood sample
Speaker 3: with all these this unlimited amount of things that they're
Speaker 3: testing for, and as incredible and convenient as that would be,
Speaker 3: it's just not realistic. So unless they have reason to
Speaker 3: test for a specific concern, it's not practical to do so.
Speaker 1: Right firsthand experience, you know, after my dad passed within
Speaker 1: I think two hours, uh, you know, the hospital had
Speaker 1: had called us and they were asking for permission for
Speaker 1: him to be an organ or tissue donor. And first
Speaker 1: of all, I can't imagine being having that job where
Speaker 1: you call grieving families an hour or two after their
Speaker 1: person has died and they're like, hey, you would love
Speaker 1: their corneas, they look great. Are you willing to part
Speaker 1: with them? So you know, these things have to be
Speaker 1: done very quickly for the viability of the organs or
Speaker 1: scan or whatever it is. And again, rabies kills around
Speaker 1: fifty nine thousand people every year.
Speaker 2: Ninety five percent of deaths.
Speaker 1: Occur in Asia and Africa, with about thirty five percent
Speaker 1: of that ninety five percent being attributed to deaths in India,
Speaker 1: and almost all of those cases were transmitted from stray
Speaker 1: dogs in those locations. But you know, it doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that there's not risk elsewhere. But the risk in the
Speaker 1: US is very low, and the chances that an organ
Speaker 1: donor has rabies is very small, and there's just not
Speaker 1: enough time to get those test results and have organs
Speaker 1: be viable.
Speaker 2: The primary carriers of rabies in.
Speaker 1: The US and Canada are bats, followed by raccoons, skunks, foxes, coyotes.
Speaker 1: Raccoon rabies seems to be recorded most along the eastern
Speaker 1: coast and into the southeast US, and then also in Ontario,
Speaker 1: Quebec and New Brunswick areas of Canada. Skunk I never realized,
Speaker 1: like you know, certain populations of animals would have it
Speaker 1: more frequently in different parts of the country.
Speaker 2: Yeah, skunk rabies.
Speaker 1: Is dominant in the Midwest and Central States and Saskatchewan, Manitoba,
Speaker 1: and Ontario and Canada. Fox rabies is most common in
Speaker 1: Alaska and northern areas in Canada and parts of Texas.
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, like got North Loonata, Texas and Arizona,
Speaker 1: and then bats everywhere except Hawaii potentially have rabies. Both
Speaker 1: the US and Canadian governments have wildlife vaccination programs to
Speaker 1: help vaccinate wild animals against rabies. So I think both
Speaker 1: countries really do a good job of educating pet owners
Speaker 1: to get their pets vaccinate, vaccine, to get their pets vaccinated.
Speaker 2: I think in most states it's.
Speaker 1: The law you have to have your pets vaccinated. I
Speaker 1: think most vets offices like, if you want to be
Speaker 1: a patient of theirs, you have to have your pets
Speaker 1: vaccinated at least against rabies if nothing else. So these
Speaker 1: wildlife vaccination programs are basically oral medications are added to
Speaker 1: like a fish meal coated packet, and then they're dropped
Speaker 1: from planes or in less rural areas. The medication food
Speaker 1: snack ease are put in in areas that target animals
Speaker 1: known to frequent so they're like, oh, pandas love coming here,
Speaker 1: Let's leave them some medical snacks.
Speaker 2: Wow, And.
Speaker 1: It's a pretty success successful program apparently, just so we
Speaker 1: can all be aware, what does a rabbit animal actually
Speaker 1: look like?
Speaker 2: I think a lot of times people see an animal
Speaker 2: during the day and.
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, gip, it's got rabies, rabies immediately. I
Speaker 1: saw a fox at eight thirty am rabies immediately, And
Speaker 1: any mammal can become infected. However, you know, the ones
Speaker 1: we already talked about are the ones who are most likely,
Speaker 1: and smaller animals like rabbits, mice, rats, squirrels are.
Speaker 2: Typically not known to be infected.
Speaker 1: I mean, you should probably still reach out to your
Speaker 1: doctor if you get bit by a squirrel, but the
Speaker 1: likelihood that those animals are carrying rabies is pretty pretty small.
Speaker 2: And birds have been found to have.
Speaker 1: Rabies and antibodies, which is interesting. Not infected or symptomatic,
Speaker 1: which is interesting, but they have antibodies in their blood.
Speaker 2: That's really interesting. Mm hmmm.
Speaker 1: It's likely that some of these birds, maybe eight carry
Speaker 1: on that had rabies. So the ravens out there are like, ooh,
Speaker 1: I found a dead snack out here, so good, but
Speaker 1: that animal may have had rabies.
Speaker 3: And it makes sense though for like scavenger birds to
Speaker 3: obviously it's not exclusive to those types of birds, but
Speaker 3: they're kind of like the pickers of the sky come
Speaker 3: down and they find like carcasses and stuff, and it
Speaker 3: makes sense why they would evolve to have those antibodies
Speaker 3: so that they don't become infected by their snacks.
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 1: So early on in an infection, a rabbit animal might
Speaker 1: look confused, disoriented, They may be unafraid of humans. Seeing
Speaker 1: a nocturnal animal during the day definitely can be a
Speaker 1: warning sign. You know, an animal that would typically flee
Speaker 1: when they see people if they're approaching. That's a concern
Speaker 1: and you obviously can't all you can't tell if an
Speaker 1: animal has rabies just by looking at it, And often
Speaker 1: nocturnal animals are active during the day, like especially when
Speaker 1: they have babies or you know, if food is particularly scarce,
Speaker 1: they might be out in the day just get that
Speaker 1: extra hunting time in. So we can't assume just because
Speaker 1: an animal is out during the day that it has rabies.
Speaker 1: But I think just a reminder that we should not
Speaker 1: be petting any raccoons, even though those one the chicken
Speaker 1: coop the other night when I went to go close
Speaker 1: them in, and I think I spooked it with my flashlight,
Speaker 1: so it was like like frozen in the corner, and
Speaker 1: I was like, you are so chubby and fluffy, and
Speaker 1: I would love to pet you.
Speaker 2: I know it's not advisable, but I'm so cute too.
Speaker 2: You sent me a picture one time of.
Speaker 3: A possum in your coop and it was so funny
Speaker 3: because I think you might need to post this picture
Speaker 3: if you have been maybe on Patreon or something. But yeah,
Speaker 3: all the chickens are chilling, they're in for the night,
Speaker 3: they're perched, and then there's just this like apossum that's
Speaker 3: just sitting there and you almost like assume that it's
Speaker 3: in its head, thinking like just just look like a chicken.
Speaker 3: Just look like a chicken, and she won't kick me out.
Speaker 3: It was a bothering them it wasn't. It was just
Speaker 3: the cutest thing.
Speaker 2: It's just like, I want to sleep in here too,
Speaker 2: Can you please not like evict me.
Speaker 1: There were several times over this last winter that I
Speaker 1: would go to close the chickens in and the possum
Speaker 1: was in there, and I was like.
Speaker 2: So cute. And it was it was nights that were
Speaker 2: really really cold, and.
Speaker 1: I was like, he's just trying to get warm with
Speaker 1: you know, his bird homies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they weren't. They weren't bugging about him.
Speaker 3: They were just all help hanging out, coexisting in the coup.
Speaker 2: It was so cute.
Speaker 1: Even when the raccoon was in the coop, the ducks
Speaker 1: were not in the coop because they were like, we're
Speaker 1: not going in there, but the chickens were all in
Speaker 1: just snooze in and uh, you know, so precious.
Speaker 2: Oh goodness.
Speaker 1: So we live in close proximity to animals, so animals
Speaker 1: are becoming desensitized to interactions with humans. So again, an
Speaker 1: animal not afraid of us, It may just be desensitized
Speaker 1: to our presence. It doesn't necessarily mean that they have rabies.
Speaker 1: But you know, these are not diagnostic signs in any way.
Speaker 1: But I think it's just in any situation, we should
Speaker 1: be giving these animals plenty of space, keeping our distance,
Speaker 1: letting them do their thing, and avoiding any.
Speaker 2: Undue interactions that could cause death.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you're unfortunate enough to have an animal bite
Speaker 1: or scratch, she immediately washed the wound with soap and
Speaker 1: water for at least fifteen minutes is the medical recommendation,
Speaker 1: and that step alone can reduce the risk of transmission
Speaker 1: of rabies and all kinds of other viruses. And then
Speaker 1: once you get through that fifteen minutes of washing, that's
Speaker 1: when you should seek medical attention and.
Speaker 2: Tell them exactly what happened, because got to drive it home.
Speaker 1: Once those symptoms appear, the window of time for preventive
Speaker 1: treatment is.
Speaker 2: Gone, and we cannot.
Speaker 1: Expect to be as lucky as Jenna. The vast majority
Speaker 1: of people are not. Post exposure treatment, however, does work
Speaker 1: really well and is readily available in the US and Canada,
Speaker 1: So as long as symptoms have not started to appear,
Speaker 1: you can get access to those treatments and probably sur
Speaker 1: or very likely to survive, have no issues, never see
Speaker 1: those symptoms develop.
Speaker 2: There are, of course, parts of the world where.
Speaker 1: The deaths primarily are occurring where medical care may not
Speaker 1: be an option, the medication may not be available a
Speaker 1: medical facility, maybe hours or days of time travel away,
Speaker 1: and that is why we see so many deaths in
Speaker 1: those areas.
Speaker 2: But here.
Speaker 1: We have the option to seek treatment millions of people.
Speaker 1: Because I was like, all right, how many people are
Speaker 1: getting like preventative treatment, and apparently it's more than a
Speaker 1: million people a year on average in the US at
Speaker 1: least are seeking preventative treatment.
Speaker 2: So if you.
Speaker 1: Think you could be exposed in any way, you know,
Speaker 1: don't be shy seek medical treatment because a lot of
Speaker 1: people are and they're not dying, so.
Speaker 2: Just do it. This has been very informative, but this
Speaker 2: is just your Ted talk, my Ted talk on rabis.
Speaker 3: Well, thanks for sharing all that, because I wouldn't have
Speaker 3: really considered.
Speaker 1: It, no, And I think, yeah, you know, we've talked
Speaker 1: about bare attacks and you know, these big, dramatic, traumatizing
Speaker 1: fatal incidents with animals, when exposing yourself to rabies can
Speaker 1: literally be as simple as oh, I went to go
Speaker 1: close the chicken coop door and you know, a skunk
Speaker 1: ran out and I was wearing sandals and he, you know,
Speaker 1: climbed over my feet or exactly.
Speaker 2: Or you're sleeping and you don't realize that you were
Speaker 2: bit by a bat.
Speaker 1: Right, so something very simple could end up being deadly.
Speaker 1: So I think just again, not like you know, to
Speaker 1: terrify all of us, but I think I was totally
Speaker 1: unaware of all of the times I had a bat
Speaker 1: in my house growing up, how potentially deadly those incidents
Speaker 1: could have been.
Speaker 2: So I think just yep, that's my ted talk. Well,
Speaker 2: thanks for sharing
Speaker 1: Yeah, and until next week, stay safe.