Rabid fox bites woman as she walks her dog

Early-morning attack in Avenue requires medical treatment

Friday, Oct. 2, 2009

It was still dark around 6:45 a.m. on Sept. 17 when Jessica R. Tomcsik of Avenue set out with her dog, Chessie, a miniature labradoodle, for a short walk before work. Tomcsik is a fifth-grade teacher at Dynard Elementary School.

On the way back, the sky was just starting to brighten and Tomcsik saw a gray fox run out a wooded area by the road.

That's when Tomcsik's day changed dramatically.

"I'm almost home," Tomcsik said. "At the same moment, a truck comes down the road and the fox started chasing it … about 10 or 15 yards."

Then the fox stopped and faced Tomcsik and her dog. It ran at them.

"I was afraid he was going to kill the dog," she said. She picked Chessie up and tried to shake off the fox that had begun biting her own left ankle.

"My adrenalin was going so fast, I don't think I had any feeling," she said. "I wanted to kill it to protect myself and my dog." She kicked at the fox with her other foot and, setting her dog down, began hitting it with the hard part of Chessie's retractable leash.

She doesn't remember the fox making any noises as it attacked, but then, Tomcsik said, she was screaming.

Chessie made a break for the house and the fox ran after him, with Tomcsik following. The fox turned again and started biting Tomcsik's right ankle.

Using the leash again, Tomcsik believes she finally stunned the fox. Tomcsik and Chessie made it to their home and got inside. Looking back, she could see the fox standing at the head of the driveway. Tomcsik left for the hospital.

She learned later that the fox then started chasing a neighbor in a pickup truck, which inadvertently killed the fox. Tomcsik's husband had called animal control. They picked up the dead fox. "They tested it, and it was rabid," Tomcsik said.

Treatment at the hospital included a human rabies immune globulin shot. "That's the really, really bad one," Tomcsik said. "They have to put it on the site of the wound."

She had to be injected about 20 times in each ankle, she said. "And [the shots] were very painful." All the while, Tomcsik kept telling the story about what happened to her to interested hospital employees. "I must have told the story 20 times," she said.

Tomcsik also received a rabies vaccine, which was followed up with subsequent vaccinations on the third, seventh and 14th day after the first shot.

So far this year, 41 animals have been tested for rabies in St. Mary's County, with 10 of those testing positive for the disease — four raccoons, three skunks, two foxes and one cat, according to Ann Rose, environmental sanitarian supervisor with the St. Mary's Health Department. Those numbers are lower than last year's particularly bad rabies report, when 33 animals were found to be rabid.

The health department "responds to any animal bite or exposure as if that animal was potentially rabid," Rose said in an e-mail.

Any mammal can be infected with rabies, according to information provided by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.

In Maryland, foxes and skunks usually each comprise 5 percent of the confirmed rabies cases. Raccoons make up 85 percent of the confirmed rabies cases in Maryland. Once an animal is infected, the disease is fatal. Animals usually die within 10 days once the signs of rabies are evident.

To avoid contact with a rabid animal, the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene discourages residents from approaching, handling or feeding wild or stray animals and encourages those with dogs, cats and ferrets to have their pets vaccinated.

However, thinking back on what happened, Tomcsik said she doesn't know that she would have done anything differently. She learned from the attack to be more aware. "I've been walking with a huge walking stick ever since," she said. "I'm just constantly scanning around me.

"It's just scary," she said. "Maybe it would have helped to know that it was a problem in this area."

scraton@somdnews.com