The cycle of cause and effect can sometimes have some paradoxical results, such as saving an animal after almost killing it. With that in mind, a Michigan man and his friends unintentionally caused a raccoon to scarcely choke to death before saving it with some life-saving slaps. “It had gotten into some trash and found a slice of cheese from our cookout earlier,” the man explained on Facebook. After noticing that the critter was struggling to breathe, his friend got to work smacking the poor thing.
In a viral video initially uploaded by Michigan resident John Ptaszenski, viewers can see his friend Bill vigorously smacking the choking raccoon. “Little bit lower, Bill,” John said, suggesting that smacking the critter’s butt was ideal to help it push out whatever it had lodged in its throat. Moments later, the trash panda was able to spit out the cheese it had eaten earlier. The group of friends cheered with delight as the disoriented and very much alive raccoon stumbled away back into its wild habitat.
“I love that y’all saved it, but at the same time…….y’all are the same ones that nearly killed it๐คท๐ค…… And act like heroes ๐ค๐ค๐ค๐ค,” thoughtfully remarked a Facebook user. John quickly protested with, “We didn’t force it to eat through the trash,” as he claimed they didn’t feed the creature; it perused through their cookout leftovers on its own. The argument between the two went on for a bit in the comments, with the random user saying that it was “great that they saved an innocent creature” but that “you can’t destroy the world and try to save it at the same time.”
A Redditor, whose comment garnered over a thousand upvotes of agreement, had a similar realization about the choking Michigan raccoon. “Life is so weird,” they began. “Had a human not interjected, the raccoon probably would’ve died. However, it was probably choking on food that was discarded by a human, so had a human not interjected, the raccoon would have lived… life is a funny thing sometimes.”
Whatever the case, this story is a good lesson to teach us that our actions, even just hanging out at a campfire cookout, can affect the environment. It was good the raccoon got a decent meal from the trash but also bad it almost died trying to eat something that wouldn’t usually be in its diet if humans weren’t around.
