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Kentucky nurse uses CPR to save a drunk dumpster-diving raccoon. Yes, really.

Had she ever performed CPR on an animal? No. But her "motherly instinct" kicked in.

Photo credit: Canva

Talk about right place, right time.

You know what they say: “If you give a raccoon some fermented fruit, it’ll ask for cardiopulmonary resuscitation.”

Okay, nobody says that. But they might consider it after reading this story!

In Letcher County, Kentucky, nurse Misty Combs and some coworkers spotted a panicked raccoon racing through the parking lot of the Kentucky Mist Moonshine, a distillery right next to her workplace.

Then, they heard a commotion from a nearby dumpster. Lo and behold, it held two baby raccoons drunk on makeshift moonshine.

“They had put some fermented peaches in their dumpster, and I guess the baby raccoons had gotten in the dumpster and they were stuck,” Combs told local news outlet Lex18.

Raccoon Drinking Beer Raccoon Meme GIFfrom Raccoon Drinking Beer GIFs

Mamma Raccoon was trying to help her tipsy little trash pandas out, to no avail. That’s when Combs’ “motherly instinct” kicked in.

“She was trying so hard to get her babies back and she didn’t know what to do,” said Combs. So, without skipping a beat, she grabbed a shovel and began scooping them out.

The first ran straight to its mom. The second one, however, seemed to be in a much more dire position. He was lying facedown in the fermented peach water, completely soaked. Combs ended up pulling him out by the tail to find he wasn’t breathing.

“Everybody around was like ‘It's dead,’” but Combs felt there was still hope, and “immediately” began doing CPR on him…certainly not something she had ever done in her 21 years as a nurse. But desperate times call for desperate measures.

“I've had some pretty crazy days on the job, but nothing like this."

Combs’ coworkers filmed her as she began doing compressions on the animal's chest, then flipping it on its side and slapping its back. Miraculously, the little critter began breathing again.

“The entire time, I was afraid it'd come-to and eat me up, and raccoons carry rabies so I was afraid of that,” Combs told Lex18. But luckily it didn’t come to that. Fish and Wildlife came, transported the little fella to a local veterinarian, who administered fluids and got him sobered up. You’re welcome for the instant visual of a baby raccoon drinking coffee and eating fatty foods.

Before getting released back into the wild, Combs and her crew aptly named their new friend Otis Campbell, after the “town drunk” character from The Andy Griffith Show.

Raccoons aren’t exactly the most universally beloved creatures, and even if the world’s biggest raccoon fan ever happened to be in this situation, the odds of them knowing how to revive the poor thing would be slim to none. Truly, this was such a right person/right place/right time circumstance.

V A Sly GIFfrom V A GIFs

“It was amazing to see something that helped bring something back to life,” Combs would later tell WYMT Mountain News Reporter Amelia Lee.

Here’s hoping poor Otis has learned his lesson and doesn’t go straight back to those peaches.

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You don't have to take a class to learn CPR. Learn the basics with this 2-minute video.

CPR is a life skill everyone needs to know.

Cincinnati Children's/YouTube

You don't need your own mannequin to learn CPR at home.

When 24-year-old Damar Hamlin collapsed on the football field after a tackle on live television, millions of people were concerned. As the Buffalo Bills' quick-thinking assistant trainer began to perform CPR, many feared they had witnessed his death.

Thankfully, CPR began immediately, which likely saved Hamlin's life and may have prevented long-term damage from lack of oxygen to the brain and other vital organs. CPR saves lives. According to the American Heart Association, receiving CPR immediately in an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest event doubles or triples a person's chance of survival.

The key is acting fast when a person shows signs of cardiac arrest, and the key to acting fast is to know what you're doing. That's why everyone should know how to perform CPR.

There are classes you can take to learn CPR and other first aid skills, but in the era of the internet, it's not necessary to take a whole class to get a handle on the basics. While it's certainly nice to have a CPR "Annie" mannequin to practice on, that's also not necessary—you can practice CPR on pillows right at home. You can even make your own CPR mannequin at home using a T-shirt, a two-liter bottle, some rubber bands and some stuffing.

CPR isn't all that complicated and it doesn't take very long to learn. If you've never learned CPR or you need a refresher, there are plenty of videos out there to learn from. However, many of them include a lot of superfluous fluff. Cincinnati Children's Hospital has a very clear, no-nonsense video that shows you how to perform CPR on an adult in less than two minutes.

(Note: This video is for CPR on people ages 12 and older. Cincinnati Children's has similar videos for infant CPR and for CPR for children ages 1 to 12.)

One tip shared by the American Heart Association is to think of the beat to the Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive" to get the right speed and rhythm while doing CPR. May seem silly and punny, but it's easy to remember.

Also, the reason the person in the video points and says, "You! Call 911!" is because yelling out "Someone call 911!" isn't as effective as telling a specific person to do it. Everyone thinks somebody else will call, so assigning a person is wise.

If you're curious about why and how CPR works, this video offers a cool 3D illustration of exactly what's happening when you do compressions. It also shows what happens if you don't pump hard or fast enough, if you do it too fast or if you don't allow the heart to refill between pumps. Visualizing what's happening inside might help you remember CPR specifics, since the goal is to get blood to pump from the heart to the brain.

It's well worth the few minutes to familiarize yourself with how to perform CPR and do some pillow practice at home. With the availability of AEDs (automated external defibrillators) it's a good idea to familiarize yourself with how to use an AED as well. These machines generally have voice commands that tell you what to do as soon as you turn it on, but always good to know what to expect beforehand.

Most of us hope we'll never be in a situation where someone's life is in our hands, but if it does happen, we definitely want to be prepared.

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The vital reason these medical professionals want to teach you how to use a tourniquet.

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On Oct. 1, 2017, in Las Vegas, 59 people were killed and over 500 more were injured in a mass shooting. It was devastating, but that didn't stop people from trying to help.

"People were calling nonstop to our ER, and I'm sure every other ER, asking if they could show up and donate blood," recalls Carolyn Smith, an ER trauma nurse at Dignity Health in Henderson, Nevada. "People were showing up at the door to donate blood at 2 in the morning."

Photo by Master Sgt. Patricia F. Moran/U.S. Air National Guard.

Smith has been a first responder on the scene at many disasters, both natural and human-caused. One thing she's noticed is that there are often countless people who want to offer their assistance. This was especially apparent in Houston after Hurricane Harvey.

"It was a very humbling experience to see people, not only in Houston, but from all over the state, coming to help no matter what color, what race, what religion, what tax bracket," she recalls.

Obviously giving blood after one of these tragedies is helpful, but what about in the immediate aftermath of something like a shooting? What can you do if someone is actually bleeding out in front of you?

It's easy to feel helpless in the presence of such a situation, but it's in those precise moments that you can be the most helpful.

There are simple steps you can take to try to save someone's life if they're bleeding uncontrollably. They just require some know-how.

This graphic comes from a program called "Stop the Bleed," which was launched after the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. It's designed to teach people the basic skills needed to stop a serious bleed from becoming life-threatening.

"They found that there were a significant number of what we call 'preventable deaths' [at Sandy Hook]," explains Dr. Sean Dort, a surgeon at Dignity Health. "If somebody knew the skills we're teaching, they would've been able to save lives."

The free Stop the Bleed program offers explicit guides to help prepare civilians to act in a situation where someone is bleeding profusely. You can also access free bleeding control classes in every state, where trained professionals teach you how to properly put on a tourniquet and pack a wound.

Teachers regularly oversee classes at capacity, which makes sense given that 2017 saw more mass shootings than any other year in modern U.S. history. Gun-shot wounds have become far too commonplace, and people seem to be tired of feeling helpless in the face of them.

A woman putting a tourniquet on a practice dummy. Photo via Dignity Health.

Medical professionals like Smith and Dort hope this impulse to be prepared will be a trend that continues.

"We need to embed [bleeding control] into the American subconscious the way CPR is," says Dort.

If bleeding control was taught, alongside CPR, in schools across the country, kids would head into adulthood armed with two vital sets of lifesaving skills. As a result, future mass shootings and other catastrophic events may not be nearly so devastating.

The more people on the scene equipped to stop bleeding, the better chance victims have of surviving until medical professionals can get to them.

It could be the difference between giving over to panic and turning a potentially bleak situation around.

For more information on how to stop bleeding, check out the video below:

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2 things you need to know to save someone's life, set to the beat of 'Stayin' Alive.' CPR is groovy.

Stayin' alive — literally.

Can disco help you save someone's life?

Maybe!

GIF by "Saturday Night Fever."

A fun PSA video by the American Heart Association is spreading the word about CPR in a seriously catchy way.

The scene: A family's having a normal dinner conversation — you know, about how to give CPR properly. (Don't you discuss that at dinner?)

Mom asks the question:

Kids roll their eyes, as kids often do:

But despite the eyerolling, the kids answer correctly with the two vital steps for giving CPR.

First, if you see a teen or adult collapse suddenly, call 911.

Second, push hard and fast at the center of the chest at the rate of at least 100 beats per minute.

And that's where the fun starts. 100 beats per minute. What exactly does that feel like?

Well apparently, the iconic 1970s song "Stayin' Alive" provides a convenient beat for giving CPR! You can actually give properly paced chest compressions to the beat of the song.

GIFs by American Heart Association.

Long live disco! Literally.

Keeping "Stayin' Alive" in the back of your mind could just be the ticket to actually saving someone's life. Take a look:

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