I’ve treated tons of cat, dog, and human bites. I’d rather be bitten by a cat than a person.
Cat bites tend to be puncture wounds. Clean it good, start some amoxicillin + clavulinic acid and infection risk is minimal. Risk of rabies is small, and if the animal is captured, it can be examined for it. And if not, and the risk is deemed significant enough, rabies shots are fairly benign these days.
Human bites tend to be jagged and ugly. Clean it good, start some amox + clav, hope it heals cleanly and doesn’t scar too bad, because you can’t suture the edges together (risk of infection increased if you do that, even if on antibiotics), and spend a few months worrying about HIV, Hep B and Hep C (which are signficant risks, far moreso than rabies).
Girl. I can imagine having reason to subdue a 15 year old girl and can adapt to how the confrontation/ submission attempt is going. I’ve calmed down many a hysterical teenager in my day and have developed a good instinct for when they are going to totatlly lose it.
I do beg to differ, though, to the assessment that this particular girl is vicious. Even the other two girls mentioned in this thread, in a fight in a shower room? That doesn’t even come close to vicious in my book. She wasn’t even screaming all that much. The police officer seemed to be very gentle with her—even after she tried to bite him. I, personally, cannot abide a biter. Her left wrist would’ve been shoved so far up her back, she would never have heard her head thumping off the hood of that car over the pop of her shoulder dislocating. And I’m not a tough girl. I’m a sissy girl.
Cyn, former Labor and Delivery RN who has heard some real screaming and who has never been bitten.
According to the LSU Vet website, cat bites are 80% likely to become infected. But only 10-15% of human bites get infected. Cats are stronger, pound per pound, and faster, and much more likely to actually get a bite in than a person. I’d still take the teenage girl.
Hmmmm… I have no experience fighting cats, but I do with people, so I’ll take the girl. I think with training however that the cat would prove much simpler.
Yes, but there’s infected and then there’s infected with human pathogens with no good way to clean it out and seal it up. Human bites share the same staph and strep risks as any bite, and in addition carry things that humans can get very ill with, like Der Trihs’ link enumerates: “…hepatitis B, hepatitis C, herpes simplex virus (HSV), syphilis, tuberculosis, actinomycosis, and tetanus.” And of course, HIV. I’ve watched people brush their teeth in a public bathroom - lots of them have open sores and bleeding gums. If I was bitten, I’d treat it as a possible HIV exposure.
Cat spit tends to have cat germs. Local inflamation and temporary bacterial infection problems perhaps, but not pervasive, life-long systemic diseases that humans can catch - except for rabies, which is very treatable.
Have you folks ever seen a cat go ape shit? I have and they are scary. I’d much rather face the woman linked in the OP or the locker room girls than this or this.
Even so, much of that depends on that we often are not allowing ourselves to maximize damage.
In the second video, if the officer had grabbed that cat by the neck he could probably snap its neck or strangle the cat in short order. Even sheer beating the crap out of it or stomping on it pinned against him by the leash.
All a human has to do is get a solid grip, preferably the back, then bang kitty against nearest hard surface till struggling stops.
Well yeah. If death is on the table then I’d choose to go against the cat for a number of reasons (the least of which I am more likely to be able to do that to a cat).
But if we go with the idea of trying to get the subject into the back of the police car with as little damage to the subject as possible then I opt for the human. Most people, even when they are resisting, are not going for full on permanent damage or death to you. Kitty has no such compunctions and will gladly strip the skin from your body no matter how nice you are trying to be.
Girl, absolutely. I don’t think some of you guys really know what a cat who is hell-bent on your destruction can do to a person. Oh, just grab it by the back of the neck? Sure, that’s easy as pie. Fuckers are armed, and so fast you can’t even see their claws as they reach out to cut your jugular.
It also depends on the cat. Any one of my cats could most likely be restrained by a toddler; they have never known anything but love. I imagine they would get into the game fairly quickly, but a human would have the advantage of surprise.
Then there are ferals. Step one of restraint would be finding them. Church’s fried chicken makes good bait. Wear armor. Have your insurance paid up.
I have a Maine Coon pushing eighteen pounds as of the other week. I’ve worked with teenagers. You can reason (sort of) with teenagers. I’ve never been able to reason with a cat. I’ll take the girl.
How many teenage girls are running around with pervasive, life-long systemic diseases? Cats pretty much have poison mouths continuously. I think I could prevent a teenaged girl from biting me. Cat? Not so much.
I’d rather fight the girl. In general, I’m a lot more frightened of an animal’s capacity to harm me than a human’s. I think it’s because I can understand a human’s thought processes and anticipate what they might do, whereas an animal is completely alien.
I can see the most dangerous girl and the most dangerous cat both being very unappealing opponents who could leave most opposing combatants in need of a lot of medical intervention.
But I still say, bite for bite, a human bite has more associated risks attached to it, even if both are attended to promptly after the bite injury.
And I’ve seen life and limb threatening infections develop from both types of bite.
I’d take either human or cat bite over komodo dragon bite, though. Those are waaaaaaaaaay bad.