First Human Case of Rabies in Illinois Since 1954

The amount of misinformation and conflicting procedures we got from all the health professionals was staggering. Some said PEP right away, others told us no risk. Cats needed no boosters said the vet, but by law they did. Also had to quarantine the cats (120 days). Confusion all around and incredibly frustrating.

We had the bat tested, it was a $100 + $75 to ship a frozen bat to another state. If you can’t afford that, you are hosed. Thankfully it was negative.

Unfortunately that means they will survive a lot of viruses that would be deadly to other creatures, and thus can become important vectors of infection.

By the time I was a teen I learned that rabies was rare, but this story helped illustrate how rare it actually is, in my home state nonetheless!

Later, back home, she started showing symptoms - and subsequently died 3 months after the vacation. None of the others that had played with the puppy tested positive.

In any case - if animals bite you, especially in high-risk countries, get started on a treatment.

I'm rather amazed that case numbers are so low in such a large population as the US. I would have expected rabies deaths to be 1-3 per year, with cases being in the low hundreds. Clearly I've overestimated how often people come into physical contact with wild animals and or pets with rabies.

Back when I was a child parents always instructed children on avoiding animals in regards to rabies, what to watch out for as signs. Wildlife instructors would come into school for a fun day, and rabies would inevitably be one of the topics of safety. Given the warnings I fully expected to encounter rabid animals far more often than I have in my lifetime (which is zero times so far).

Was out for a late night walk in the fall and heard the same "hoot hoot" from an owl I've heard forever. Except this night, as I'm walking on the sidewalk as I always do, I get slammed in the back of my head and lurch forward. I look up and I see an owl flying away. I literally got dive bombed by an owl.

I felt fine, outside of some cobwebs to shake off from getting my bell rung. I instinctively rub the back of my head where I got hit and find blood. So, I'm attacked by animal and drew blood, my first thought is rabies.

So like any self respecting nerd I google "owl rabies". The general answer here is I should be OK, but most of the data talks about BITES. I didn't get bitten. More information required.

Looking for more a more authoritative source information, and expecting I would need to contact my insurance company anyway if I did require treatment, I call our insurance company nurse line.

Their data isn't much better. I ask if I should go to the ER, they basically leave it up to me. I ask if it would be covered by the insurance, they have no idea. I decide I'm not messing with rabies, so to the ER I go.

The ER checks out my head and it is largely superficial damage that will heal on its own after being cleaned up, but definitely a legitimate blood drawing puncture wound. Their research notes that owls themselves are safe, but animals owls predate on can carries rabies and they obviously use their claws to do that. If the owl bit me I'd be free and clear, but since I got clawed we've entered the gray area where I had to make a choice.

In theory, I should be fine and can just go home. The owl would have to predate on an animal that had rabies, get its saliva or nervous system tissue on its claws, and then get that into me through the wound. Rabies odds are low, the specific circumstance required drives it lower, you know the drill.

But as most readers here know, theory isn't practice. Rabies has to essentially be treated immediately, so if if this is the one time in life that I hit the jackpot, that's all she wrote. The staff iterated that the treatment was going to be "unpleasant", but if I googled "rabies death" it would likely be much more palatable.

That first round was a bunch of shots at various locations around my body. To try to help they rounded up nurses, armed each one with a needle, and had everyone give it to me at the same time. I felt like a pincushion, but pain wise it did actually help. I remember a sense of bodily confusion, like my body was struggling to figure out and convey what was happening where. I've never felt anything like that before or since.

The boosters from there were single shots. Since we had no way to test the animal they took the worst case schedule, which I think added an additional shot. They were largely uneventful, other than needing to return to the ER because rabies vaccine is pretty much not available anywhere else (at least around here).

The series was EXPENSIVE. I'd have to dig up the bill to find the exact numbers, but it would have easily smashed my deductible on its own. Part of the issue were the follow-ups - each was the injection plus a minimum level ER visit.

I was fortunate because my wife was pregnant at the time and was due to give birth any day, so regardless of this incident we were going to be smashing through our out-of-pocket limit anyway. It did create some confusion when I had to go to the ER to get one of the boosters during her birthing stay. Not too often do people come to the ER for treatment from the hospital side with admittance bands on and whatnot :-)

They better have a video of them saying repeatedly "If you don't do this, you have a 99.9999% chance of dying".