A four-year-old Georgia boy is undergoing treatment for rabies after being attacked by a rabid raccoon on his front porch on Thursday.
Chandler Mahaffey’s mother, Amber Mahaffey, killed the wild animal after she kicked it off her child, and it went racing around her property.
Amber realized something was wrong when her son ‘started screaming and hollering,’ she told Fox 5 News in Atlanta.
‘I peeked around the corner and there was a raccoon holding onto him on his hand,’ she said.
Chander tried to fight the raccoon off, but Amber had to kick it away from him, she said, before she eventually killed it and took her son to a hospital.
Chandler is now recovering at home, with his family in Covington.
Chandler Mahaffey, a four-year-old Georgia boy, is undergoing treatment for rabies after being attacked by a rabid raccoon on his family’s front porch in Covinton on Thursday
Amber described the moment she saw her son being bitten by the creature to the news outlet.
‘They got into a tussle on the floor and he was trying to fight the raccoon off of him, and as he tried to fight him off, the raccoon kept holding on to him and biting him repeatedly,’ Amber said.
‘So we kicked the raccoon off of him. It ran around the house trying to attack everyone.’
Once the raccoon was away from the rest of her family, Amber shot and killed it, she said.
Then she immediately took Chandler to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston.
Newton County Animal Control officials tested the animal for rabies and confirmed it was the first positive rabies case in the county this year; Chandler received his first rabies show on Friday
Newton County Animal Control officials tested the animal for rabies and confirmed it was the first positive rabies case in the county this year.
‘A person who is exposed and has never been vaccinated against rabies should get four doses of rabies vaccine – one dose right away, and additional doses on the third, seventh, and fourteenth days. They should also get another shot called Rabies Immune Globulin at the same time as the first dose,’ the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
‘A person who has been previously vaccinated should get two doses of rabies vaccine – one right away and another on the third day. Rabies Immune Globulin is not needed.’
Chandler received his first rabies shot on Friday, Amber said.
Neighbors Joseph Scroughams said he’ll be on the lookout for any other wild animals exhibiting characters of being infected with rabies, which include both acting hostile and aggressive, and tame and easily approachable, according to the CDC.
Animals infected with rabies, like raccoons and bats – which are the most common source of human infection – may also appear to be foaming at the mouth, as the disease causes excessive saliva production.
While about 7,000 cases of rabies in animals are reported to federal officials each year, human rabies is rare in the United States, the CDC said, with only 55 cases diagnosed since 1990; A stock image of a raccoon that is not infected with rabies is shown here
‘It makes you nervous a little bit but I’ve lived in the woods all my life,’ Scroughams said.
‘I’ve been wanting to get with the neighbors, take some shotguns to walk through the woods, three or four of us together.’
While about 7,000 cases of rabies in animals are reported to federal officials each year, human rabies is rare in the United States, the CDC said. There have been only 55 cases diagnosed since 1990.
The CDC recommends immediately undergoing rabies treatment if you’re bit by a rabid animal, rather than waiting for symptoms to show up, which may take days, months, or even up to one year.
If left untreated, rabies can cause pain, fatigue, headaches, fever, and irritability,followed by seizures, hallucinations, and paralysis. Human rabies is almost always fatal.