So…details? This is pretty much what I’m trying to ascertain. What exactly was he doing? Was he freaking out, trying to go ballistic on everyone, or what?
As one who’s had the 10 shots in the stomach (thankfully, I was too young to remember, but the stories were horrific enough), I’m glad to hear that the new process is easier. [It was 30+ years ago, in Turkey, given by USAF medical staff, when I was scratched by a feral kitten. I was 2, and unable to ID the cat for further examination, so they gave it to me just in case.]
Does having had the 10 shot treatment afford me any protection against future exposure? I’d go get the shots afresh if it ever occurred, but this thread raised my curiosity.
I haven’t seen that movie, but I’ve seen footage of a boy, looked to be somewhere between 3 and 5 years old, dying of rabies in the Philippines. He was restrained by the wrists and ankles and his head was just sort of lolling as a large amount of white foam came drooling out of his mouth every time he moved or breathed. Somebody tried to get him to drink from a small cup of water and he started flailing about and screaming. Or howling, more accurately. At that point the footage cut out.
Horrifying. If it were happening to me I’d want somebody to put me out of my misery.
Is this it? http://youtube.com/watch?v=-L-7ZucYJvE
It is creepy…what a horrible way to go. Is it considered unethical to just kill someone with the disease? I mean…if you know what’s going to happen…
Only Mammals can carry/contract rabies.
The whole eagle thing was a hijack in which I participated, having nothing directly to do with rabies. Sorry.
But upthread, vetbridge offered a cite of a great horned owl confirmed positive for rabies virus. And if I recall correctly, CDC had a cite of a pigeon (rock dove) similarly confirmed infected. These are admittedly extremely rare. However, given such, rabies may not be restricted exclusively to mammals, but to warm blooded animals.
That’s the same boy, but that appears to be a different clip from the one I saw. The clip I saw was a bit longer, and he had more foam than that coming from his mouth, and he was struggling a lot more. Also, it wasn’t on the Internet.
Poor little kid. I personally would have no ethical problem with euthanasia in cases like this, but now the induced coma treatment that worked for Jeanna Giese may offer some hope, so if it were up to me I’d say try the coma treatment, as long as it actually renders the patient unconscious and doesn’t just put them into a hallucinatory or dream state … I know with Jeanna Giese they induced coma with ketamine, and I’m not sure exactly how unconscious ketamine makes you; I know it’s used as a dissociative hallucinogen by some people, so clearly it doesn’t always cause you to lose consciousness. (IIRC, people are still considered “conscious” during hallucinations and dreams, and I personally experience pain in my dreams on a regular basis, even pain that hurts a lot more than it does when I’m awake, so I’m nervous about sedating somebody in agony to the point where they can still dream.) I presume that in a higher dose it can act like surgical anesthesia and just turn off consciousness altogether. Although even if not, it does act as a dissociative anesthetic and makes it easier to tolerate pain by divorcing the sense of self from the sensation of pain … but it might be impossible to avoid the pain and unpleasant sensations of rabies if they’re coming from infected, misfiring brain tissue itself rather than a traditional injury to the body.
Okay, re-reading that, it seems like I’m rambling. Hopefully in a comprehensible manner, though. And it probably doesn’t matter because I’d imagine that for most parts of the world there’s not really any ketamine and antiviral medications to spare for rabies victims anyway. If there was no hope of trying the induced coma treatment on me, I’d personally want to be given a vast overdose of morphine or just shot in the head to avoid the symptoms of rabies … but I wouldn’t feel comfortable making that decision for somebody else, particularly not a little kid … but I wouldn’t feel comfortable watching them suffer like that either. It’s just an awful situation all around.
Sorry for the hijack … or whatever. I’m going to bed.
Were those birds infected in and of themselves, or did they just have detectable amounts of rabies virus in their saliva from feeding on rabid mammal carcasses? Is there any information on that?
That’s okay. I never realized how scary rabies could be…I mean, the possibility of actually having it and there not being anything to do about it. It’s a lot closer to the viruses in “28 Days Later” and “I Am Legend” that I had realized.
Hijack…going to bed so early? I know you’re on the west coast judging by your location…but not going to stay up to welcome the New Year?
Interestingly, my first exposure to what rabies is like, other than the ending of Old Yeller, was reading about what it did to her when Caroline Hubert, the fictional main character of The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect, infected herself on purpose. The description of her symptoms and what Prime Intellect had to do to save her was just … chilling. (I know it’s fiction, and fairly far-out science fiction at that, but still.) That’s what initially lead me to do some research to see how accurately it was depicted, and man … horrible stuff. I really should have stuck to the Internet instead of going into the biology department at UNLV and talking to a couple of the professors there. That’s how I ended up seeing the longer video of that poor boy.
What really scared me about rabies is that once the symptoms show up, the virus is already in your brain and you’re doomed. I never realized that. So by the time you know you have it … it’s too late to do anything. (Unless the induced coma therapy pans out for more than just one person, of course.)
Heh heh … I stayed up most of last night working on a web site for my dad’s business, and I have a sinus and possibly lung infection to boot, so I have a monster sinus headache. But just after I said that, the Guaifenex PSE I took kicked in – it contains 600mg of guaifenesin, an expectorant that supposedly makes coughing more productive, and 120mg of pseudoephedrine, the equivalent of four Sudafeds. Not surprisingly, after that much pseudoephedrine, now I’m wide awake. But coupled with 400mg of ibuprofen, 500mg of acetaminophen, and 5mg of hydrocodone, my sinus headache has finally mostly disappeared, so I’m happy. Of course, now I’ll probably crash into bed when it wears off and sleep through the New Year celebration … but at least my head doesn’t hurt.
Okay, that was a monster hijack. Sorry, everybody. But at least the first part of my post is at least somewhat on-topic.
/shamelessly continuing eagle hijack
Working in raptor rehab, I had the same experience of being responsible for one set of talons. I guess it seems less intimidating when the relationship is mutually cooperative with the bird making an active decision to be part of the team–though the reality of danger when working with such an animal is certainly no less.
To put their strength in perspective for folks who have no basis for comparison, I once worked with a ferruginous hawk (sometimes considered to be a small eagle, or eagle-hawk) which weigh approximately 1/4-1/3 what a golden eagle weighs. When you work with birds of prey you wear a long, heavy leather glove called a gauntlet. The gauntlet, with large birds, is really more to protect your skin from inadvertent scratches than offering any real protection from their talons, as he could, and did on occasion, put his talons through three layers of heavy kangaroo hide to your arm with just a casual squeeze.
I remember reading a book written by the first Westerner to acquire and train a Berkut (warning:dead wolf in that photo). This bird happened to be a sizable female and once put her talons into the guy’s elbow, into the joint itself, on accident. Getting whacked by a wing can break your arm.
Still, not an experience many people ever get to have. 
/hijack
Holy crap! That bird took down a wolf! It came down hard and broke it’s neck, I assume?
I have always fantasized about handling a falcon or hawk…
/equally shameless- sauce for the goose, after all…
I doubt the broken neck. Most likely killing talon punctures to the brain. Typical raptor killing technique. I’ve seen small deer taken that way, though never a wolf.
Had a restrained bald eagle on the table once. Hooded bird, dorsal recumbency (on its back), assistant at bird’s head, cradling wings with his arms and holding a foot with each hand. I reached across the bird for something or other, bird lunged, assistant lost one foot. I had an eagle attached to my tricep. Deeply attached to my tricep. Had to call for anesthesia, then a rather painful wait until we finally got the grip to relax. Just another day on the farm!
/end hijack (possibly temporarily)
They’re trained, all birds of all species hunting all prey, to strike the back of the skull where the neck connects. Realize that in the case of a golden this is a fairly heavy bird traveling at a pretty high rate of speed if they’ve stooped from any kind of height; the strike will flip the prey head-over-heels… so a broken neck is certainly possible with a hard strike to the to the right spot, though strike + talons piercing the same area causing paralysis or death are also likely. Sometimes it happens that they hit without a killing blow, in which case the bird binds to the neck and when the head comes around to bite, grabs the muzzle–suffocating it or immobilizing it long enough for the hunter to arrive and help. No joke.
/hopelessly hijacked and virtually dead thread, what the heck
NajaNivea, since you have an affinity for one sport not commonly engaged in by women, may I assume that your user name also indicates some affinity for a different but perhaps even less popular group of animals?
/end heck
Also, now that we’ve hopelessly hijacked this thread - how about “Ask the Falconer…”?
Yes, please! Would you guys?