Boing Boing reader Eric was kind enough to share this excerpt from a family email message:
Last night around 7:00 pm Terri came home and was walking around her yard looking at her flower garden. She noticed an animal acting very strangely, since it was running around in circles, plus falling down. She tried to chase it away, which caused the "Ground Hog" to attack her and it gave her a bite on the leg.
She then called me, and I drove over bringing my shotgun with. When I arrived the "Hog" advanced towards me like it was going to attack, so I sent him to a better place.
We then packed up the "Hog" and took off for the emergency room. We first went to *** clinic, where they cleaned the wound and then sent us to M____ Hospital.
I believe that Terri was the first ground hog attack that they had there, and really didn't believe that it was a ground hog until I showed they the animal, then they were believers!
So Terri had to start the rabies shots, until they find out if the hog was infected with them. The hog had to be dropped off at the Health Dept for testing, and the results won't be available until maybe Monday or later.
It also could be that the animal was drunk, from eating fermented berries? The health dept seemed to like that idea, since Hogs are low risk animals for rabies. I'm hoping that it will turn out to be the answer! It turned out to be a long evening, since we got home around 12:00 last night.
