Nurse Revives Drunken Raccoon After Moonshine Mishap

Talk about a hair-raising hangover.

A Kentucky nurse is being hailed as a hero after saving the life of a raccoon that went belly-up in a dumpster filled with fermented peaches and moonshine. (Only in the South, eh?)

Misty Combs, a nurse at Letcher County Health Department, thought it was going to be a regular day at work — until she and a co-worker spotted a frantic mama raccoon trying to rescue her two pups from a nearby dumpster. Turns out, the babies had fallen in and found themselves in a sticky (and boozy) situation.

Dumpster Drama

Combs quickly sprang into action with a shovel. The first raccoon was scooped out and scampered safely back to mom. But the second wasn’t so lucky — the poor little critter was floating face-down in a slurry of water and moonshine-soaked peaches.

“I grabbed him by the tail and pulled him out, and everybody was saying, ‘It’s dead, it’s not breathing,’” Combs explained. But her nursing instincts kicked in. Right there in the parking lot, she started performing chest compressions and even gave the raccoon a few strategic back slaps.

Call Him Otis

A co-worker filmed the whole thing, capturing the moment the soggy raccoon coughed back to life like a frat boy at last call. Fish and Wildlife arrived, whisked the critter off to a vet for fluids, and got him back on his feet (and hopefully off the bottle).

The office dubbed their furry patient Otis Campbell — named after the town drunk in The Andy Griffith Show. Once Otis sobered up, he was released back into the wild, hopefully a little wiser about free cocktails served in dumpsters.

Moral of the Story?

If you’re going to get hammered, maybe don’t do it in a garbage bin.

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