'Nicely groomed' raccoon bites woman protecting her dog
Chelsea Power is doing fine after suffering scratch and bite from masked attacker
On a trip to Thailand seven years ago, Southwest Portland resident Jacek Brown was bitten by a monkey who climbed aboard his kayak.
Standing on Northwest 21st Avenue in the rain, Brown said he recalled thinking, “Oh cute, a little monkey!” before it bit him hard in the shoulder.
He was traveling with a doctor friend but one who had no experience with monkey bites. A local clinic gave Brown a series of rabies shots good for 10 years.
Last Friday, on Halloween, Brown and his fiancee Chelsea Power walked a block from the massage business she owns to have dinner at Silver Dollar Pizza. It was about 9 p.m. when the couple finished up and returned to their car.
As they got into the car the couple’s dog, Addy, wriggled out of her harness and trotted over to a tree well on the sidewalk. That’s when the couple heard an awful screaming noise from the dog. “It sounded just completely crazy,” Brown said.
Chelsea ran toward the sound. It was dark.
“I went into fight-or-flight mode. I had no choice but to jump the raccoon,” Power said. “One bite on Addy’s tiny body could have been deadly.” The raccoon bit Chelsea’s leg and placed a mouth-lock on her arm.
Brown came over and kicked the raccoon, sending it flying away from his future wife. The raccoon’s paw was caught and left a deep scratch on Brown’s leg before it scampered up a tree. Raccoons have five fingers and bad eyesight and use their hands to do most of the seeing.
“It went up the tree, but you know, not that far,” Brown said. “It stared down looking at us. And I’ll tell you what, he was nicely groomed. He did not look feral. He had a beautiful white face.”
“Chelsea was of course very concerned about rabies,” Brown continued, “and asked me what if it has rabies? I told her you die. The second you get it you die.”
“This whole thing took about four-five seconds,” he said.
Fortunately, there are few rabid raccoons on the West Coast, Brown said. “That’s an East Coast thing. I did some reading and up to 10% out there are rabid.”
A few days after the incident Jacek called the same doctor friend and said “you aren’t going to believe this.”
The doctor assured him that they would both be fine. But just to be safe Power is undergoing rabies treatment.
Brown sympathizes with the raccoon’s motives. “Our dog looks like a little skunk; it was probably just protecting his young.”