re: Runner vs Raccoon

I like this bit:

quote:

---

She couldn't avoid the raccoon, she told the newspaper; the trail was too narrow. So she succumbed to the reality that she would be bitten.

The best place, she reasoned, would be her hand: It would leave her relatively mobile and provide her best chance at defense. Borch extended her hands toward the animal, the Press Herald reported.

It sunk its teeth into her thumb. Borch screamed. The raccoon clawed her arms wildly, its jaw pressed tight. Borch panicked. Then she remembered her phone that sank into the puddle.

---

I'm thinking she tried to make a friend, got bitten by the rabid coon for her folly, and then snapped when she drowned it. There's no reason the think she couldn't have turned around and gone the other way or circled around it off the path.

There are multiple types/stages of rabies, and I believe "ferocious" is the least common.