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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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Mom traveling solo with toddler shocked by the outpouring help she got from total strangers

It all started when her flight got canceled.

@notaregularnanny/TikTok

Faith in humanity (and travel) restored.

Stories that involve air travel don’t usually restore our faith in humanity. You’re way more likely to find headlines featuring lost or stolen luggage, rude passengers or unhelpful staff. But every so often, one will come around to remind us that kindness does, in fact, exist…even 40,000 feet up in the air. And when they do appear, they simply must be shared.

In an exclusive in PEOPLE, Gabrielle G., a 27-year-old solo mom who goes by @notaregularnanny on social media, shared how she had been traveling with her 18-month-old son back home to Florida from a Fourth of July family visit in Kansas City, Mo., when her flight got canceled due to an IT outage.

This would be the first of a whole slew of unfortunate circumstances. For Gabrielle was able to rebook a connecting flight through Detroit, however, she and her son were booted off the new flight due to a spacing snafu.

This would be enough for anyone to lose hope, let alone a young single mom taking care of a child all by herself. But in that moment, Gabrielle was about to learn she wasn’t as alone as she thought.

Just as she was about to exit the plane, another mom offered to put her 2-year-old son on her lap so that Gabrielle and her child could take the extra seat. “We ended up getting a seat on that plane after all because of her,” she told People.

But the kindness didn’t stop there. Gabrielle would tell PEOPLE that even though her journey home would include a few more obstacles, like another cancelled flight once she landed in Detroit, as well as no available rental cars or hotel rooms, the strangers she’d meet along the way would help that journey ultimately be an incredibly heartwarming one.

In a now viral video, Gabrielle listed off those helpful strangers—from the old man who helped her son up to look out the airplane window, to the family that entertained him while they were stuck on the tarmac for hours, to the Uber driver who let them stay in his car while they waited for their train so they’d stay safe, and more.


@notaregularnanny

Sobbing crying making this video ❤️‍🩹🥲 my faith in humanity was restored after this whole experience #ittakesavillage #myvillage #motherhood #solotravel #solomom #travelingwithkids #stranded #momsoftiktok #faithinhumanityrestored

So many viewers chimed in to share how simply watching the clip restored their own faith in humanity as well.

“My childhood trauma has taught me to trust NOBODY, I cried my eyes out watching this because [of this] exchange of compassion and love by strangers! Thank you for healing a part of me!” one person wrote.

Another said, “If I’ve learned anything recently, it’s that humanity isn’t as awful as it’s currently portrayed to be. May we all take care of one another.”

Others noted how this was a prime example of how “the village” doesn’t always have to be our close friends and family. Rather, it can be, one one person put it, “the people you pass by throughout life.”

Another person wrote, “Be someone’s village! I will always offer to help keep tabs on a kiddo or play with them while a parent handles something. It takes so little effort to choose kindness, help, listen, entertain.”

Another simply dubbed this video as “hopecore,” which feels so appropo. May all our feeds, and our hearts be filled with more hopecore just like this.

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Passengers give 5-year-old kid mid-air ceremony after he missed his kindergarten graduation

"It is simple human to human kindness that keeps us sane."

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May all flights be like this.

Five-year-old Xavier Rivas thought he would be missing the milestone of his one and only kindergarten graduation. But thanks to the kindness of strangers, he got an extra special memory sure to last him a lifetime.

Aboard a Frontier Airlines flight from Florida to Puerto Rico, an attendant announced over the loudspeaker that the young boy would be given his own mid-flight graduation ceremony, and asked the other passengers to help cheer him on.

In a clip posted to TikTok, we see not only Xavier beam in his cap and gown as he walks down the aisle while "Pomp and Circumstance" plays, but also the fellow passengers as they applaud and give him high fives.

Watch:

@alldayloveme Kindergarten graduation on Frontier Airlines! Lets all congratulate him! #kindergarten #graduation #frontierairlines #fypage #flightattendant ♬ original sound - Laci Alvarez

Other viewers noted how folks instantly lit up at the chance to make one kid’s day.

“It’s so cute when she said ‘kindergarten graduation everyone perked up. Like yes, let's hype this little kid up lol.”

“I love how everyone went from 😠 to 🤩with the announcement.”

“I love how instantly happy everyone was. If only things were as simple today as they were when we were in kindergarten.”

“I cried so fast. This is what being human is all about.”

“It is simple human to human kindness that keeps us sane.”

With all the stories of bad plane behavior out there, this one feels extra refreshing for the soul. It’s just a little reminder that, at least in some ways, humans are hardwired to care for one another…even while thousands of feets in the air.

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