This story is from Karen Inman.

This raccoon was one of my first miracles. I had been caring for raccoons for only about 2 years when I got the call about an injured raccoon hanging around the back of a building. When I got there, the maintenance man showed me this poor little animal that he had in a Hav-a-hart trap and he began to tell me the story about her.  He began to explain to me that she had been seen there about 3 weeks ago, hanging around the back of the building.  He said that her face looked a bit raw and that she was walking strangely. He told me that they had trapped her and took her out into the woods behind the building and released her. He noticed about a week later that she was back and her face was really raw now and bloody. He said that they trapped her again and took her back to the woods and released her again.

He then said that she showed up again for the third time and he trapped her again. He then told me he said to the raccoon, “Well this is the third time I have trapped you back here. You must be in need of help.” He told me that he felt that 3 strikes you’re out and she must be in need of help so he called the veterinarian office nearest to the building and they in turn gave him my number. I was totally mystified by the whole story, but I was also glad that he had finally tried to help this poor little animal.

I had never seen such a sight; the poor little thing was starved and thin. She also had 3^rd degree burns on her face and on the bottom of all four feet and she could hardly walk. Her face was burnt to the bone and her feet were bleeding. I thought to myself, there is no way I can fix this. The veterinary office that was nearby was one of the offices that I had used for wildlife and the vet was a very nice lady who had helped me before. I really thought the best thing was to have this poor animal euthanized. The vet told me to bring her in and that she would take a look at her.

After examining her, the vet told me that the burns were bad, however, there were no signs of infection in the bones and if I wanted to take the time to doctor her, she just might survive if we could keep the infection down. The vet also told me that burns take a long time to heal and that she would be in care for a while. We loaded her up with antibiotics and I took her home. I decided to call her "Sinew".

The picture above was taken the day she was picked up. She was about 4 months old and you can see her poor little face. This was May 8, 1999^. The bottom of the cage was wire and it had to be padded because just walking on the wire caused her feet to bleed.

This photo was taken 8 months later on January 10, 2000^. She had just gotten back from the vet’s office and we were told that she was healing very well, however, it would be at least another 6 - 10 months before we could consider releasing her.

It was now November, 2000 and Sinew was ready to go. She had healed completely and her feet had toughened to the point that they did not bleed anymore. However, November was the wrong time of year to do a release, so Sinew stayed with us until February 2001.

We released her on February 14, 2001, she was ready to go. I spent over 18 months caring for this little miracle and it was well worth it, especially when we saw her take off through the woods.