Pregnant Lady Fights Off Rabid Fox, So Cue The ‘One Tough Mother’ Jokes

At nine months pregnant I threw a tantrum if asked to do something that required a lot of exertion, like walking up a very slight incline. But one mother who is much, much badder ass than I will ever be actually got into it with a rabid fox this week, inspiring several “one tough mother” headlines. She deserves them.

According to KFOR.com, Ashley Kotchetov of Fayetteville, N.C., was a week away from her due date when she was walking her six-year-old son to the car and suddenly out of nowhere a rabid fox attacked them. That is basically my nightmare. I have an abiding and pretty irrational fear of rabies. I fear rabies like other people fear clowns. (To be fair, rabies is scarier than clowns.) When the fox attacked Kotchetov and her son, she fought back quickly. Kotchetov hit the fox with her son’s book bag, tossed him on top of her truck, and then climbed up after him.

Ugh. The idea of climbing on top of a truck while 39 weeks pregnant is giving me stress contractions even without the idea of being attacked by a rabid fox.

Kotchetov and her son stayed perched on top of the truck for about 15 minutes while the fox worried the backpack. Luckily, neither Kotchetov nor her son were bitten by the fox, but Kotchetov did come into contact with its saliva while she was fighting it off with the backpack, so she had to undergo rabies treatment. She of course had concerns about what the rabies treatment might do to the fetus, but her doctor recommended, saying she was at greater risk of actually developing rabies than she was of the rabies vaccine harming the fetus.

Kotchetov is one BAMF, and now she has an excellent story to tell about the time she beat up a rabid animal while 39 weeks pregnant, officially winning every dinner party conversation for the rest of her life.

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