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Wildlife gets too close for comfort

County Commissioner Pat Mulieri has a painful encounter with two raccoons at her home.

By DAVID DeCAMP
Published August 17, 2006

County Commissioner Pat Mulieri has been cornered by constituents before. But this was the first time she was bitten.

It all happened in the wee hours of the night two weekends ago, when a pair of raccoons closed in on Mulieri's shiny black cat, Big Boy, on the porch of her Gowers Corner log house. Mulieri went outside to scare them off.

Instead of skedaddling as usual, the raccoons went after the nightie-clad commissioner. One grabbed and bit her ankle, she said, and the other scratched her other foot. She shrieked.

Her husband, Jimmy, doused her with iodine - ouch! - before they decided Bayonet Point Medical Center might be the better venue for quality health care. There, the commissioner said, the Mulieris offered to go home to trap and deliver the offenders for brain testing. The doctor had another idea.

"Do you want to live or die?" Mulieri recalled him asking.

"I want to live," said Mulieri, 68.

They went through eight vials of rabies vaccine that morning, Mulieri said. She has to receive shots until 28 days after the bite. The needles poke her ankle but don't hurt much - a lesson for other victims reluctant to get treatment, she said.

Mulieri said she has a new appreciation for wildlife. But she has no trouble walking, and for the record, no frothing at the mouth.

"I'm a cautious animal lover now," she said.

[Last modified August 17, 2006, 07:21:37]