Father and son Jeff and Samual Bournes were on Mount Vernon Avenue during National Night Out Aug. 6 when they spotted a raccoon in distress trying to cross the road. Despite the risk, together they grabbed a blanket from their car and rescued the raccoon before it could be hit in traffic.
“I know it wasn’t the safest thing to do, but it was stumbling across the road and moving very slowly, Jeff Bournes said. “It was crossing the street and we needed to keep it from getting run over.”
The duo called animal control and awaited a response as they wrapped the raccoon in a blanket.
“We waited about 20 minutes for animal control to arrive,” said Samuel Bournes, who just started his first year at Gunston Middle School after attending QSI Astana in Kazakhstan. “We don’t know the gender of the raccoon and we didn’t see any injuries. But we have since found out that it was euthanized.”
Tony Rankin, chief of Animal Services for the Animal Welfare League of Alexandria, confirmed the situation with the raccoon.
“It was crossing the street and we needed to keep it from getting run over.”
— Jeff Bournes on saving a raccoon in Del Ray
“We did pick up a raccoon on Aug. 6 that Jeff Bournes and his son had found while attending National Night Out,” Rankin said. “This raccoon was displaying significant signs of illness and was determined to be suffering. Given the raccoon’s condition and potential for exposure to a human it was felt the best course of action was to humanely euthanize the raccoon and submit a specimen to the health department for rabies testing.”
Rankin added that the rabies test was negative but that the raccoon may have been suffering from distemper.
Said Samule Bournes, “the raccoon seemed young and scared. We had to stop.”