Off topic story of rabid animal attack-strange but true
Thursday, December 29, 2005
This story's too strange to be fiction
By Bill Cochran
ROANOKE.COM COLUMNIST
The most talked about bear hunting story of the 2005 season really didn?t involve a bear, and it was so strange nobody could have made it up.
It was the kind of tale you?d most likely hear around a campfire or in a hunting cabin or in the cab of a pickup or maybe by e-mail.
That?s how I heard it, by e-mail, form my friend John Roberts in Lexington. His nephew, a bear hunter, had told him.
John said he couldn?t confirm the details, but figured the facts were close to what he had heard. It involved four bear hunters taking a break in their vehicles when a bobcat jumped through a window of a truck and began clawing and biting one of the hunters.
It happened in Bath County or nearby, according to John, who suggested that maybe I could confirm it through the Heath Department since rabies apparently was a factor and that would have been reported to officials.
If you are around a campfire or in a hunting cabin or talking to a buddy in the cab of a pickup, you don?t want too much verification because it might ruin a good story. You just say, ?Did you hear the one about ?? It is much the same for e-mails, which don?t let the truth stand in the way of a good story.
But if you are writing a byline piece for a creditable operation you?d better be right, even if you are nothing but a lowly outdoor writer.
A few days after John?s e-mail, I got verification. Not that I had done any detective work. I received a newspaper clipping about the event from Cliff Rexrode, a friend in Waynesboro. The clipping came from the Highland County Recorder. The writer was staffer Amanda Isley.
Here?s a summary of her story:
Larry Burke of Goshen and Steve Nelson of Burnsville were sitting in a truck along Virginia 39 near Douthat State Park waiting for their hounds to return from a bear chase. Burke was behind the wheel with the window half down talking to Shawn Loudermilk and Mike Strickler, a couple of fellow hunters in an adjacent vehicle. A light snow was falling and the guys were having a good time.
That?s when a female bobcat strolled out of the woods.
?Suddenly, all hell broke loose,? is how writer Isley reported it. ?With a menacing hiss, the crazed cat leapt onto the roof of Loudermilk?s truck and then lunched through Burke?s partially open window, clawing and biting at his face.?
You really can?t make up something this weird.
Burk fought the cat off as best he could and later would say the animal had stuck to him ?like a good piece of strong Velcro.?
It gets better, or as Dave Barry would say, ?I?m not making this up.?
Burke was able to hurl the thrashing animal out of the truck three times, but each time it sprang back into the cab to renew its assault. On the fourth try, Burke finally got rid of the animal, but not before he suffered scratches to his face and a bite to his right arm and a bite to his head just above his ear which would require nine stitches.
Where was his partner, Nelson, while all this was going on?
Well, like any red-blooded person, he bailed out of the truck when the cat came in. When Burke tossed his fury attacker from the truck, Nelson chased after it, but slipped on the snow. The cat turned on him and bit his leg.
Loudermilk and Strickler also got into the battle. Working together, the four friends were able to pin the cat, with Loundermilk getting his foot on its head and Strickler ending the show with a shot from his pistol.
Were the guys scared? Burke said everything happed so fast they didn?t have time to be scared.
Burke and Nelson drove themselves to the hospital where they were treated and began a series of rabies shots. The cat tested positive for rabies. It was estimated to weigh more than 30 pounds and appeared to be in good shape, but Burke said he knew from the first hiss that it was rabid. Bobcats normally are scared to death of people, but this one wasn?t.
As for the story, Burke said, ?It?s really unbelievable; if someone told me that same story, I?d have a lot of doubts, but it happened.?
The men were back bear hunting the next day and treed a bear. Somehow, after hearing their story, no bear could seem as menacing as that bobcat. Next time I see bear hunters along the road I?m going to be tempted to say, ?Forget the bear; watch out for the bobcat!
