Coyotes and Bare-Handed Combat

Coyotes and Bare-Handed Combat – by Liam Sweeny.

Some stories, you just wish there were more of, and by that, I mean, more to it. Because the basic facts of the story were that damn good. So how about this one? A hiker, who to at least one journalist, deserved just a modicum of privacy, killed a coyote. With his bare hands. And come to find out, it was rabid.

So this is one of those good and bad things. To the one part of me, it’s a “Hell yeah, dude killed a coyote with his bare hands! Badass!” The other part of me says that a guy put a poor animal out of its misery. So I’m torn on where to go with this.

Now he was bitten on the leg, so if you know anything about rabies (I don’t) you know that he’s gonna need a ton of painful shots.

The coyote had attacked other animals, dogs that we know of days before. But coyotes aren’t really known for coming out and being aggressive like that. So something was wrong.

The guts on this guy, to kill a coyote with his bare hands after getting bit. Maybe he figured it was him or the coyote, and maybe it would’ve been.

It was only the third confirmed rabies infection in Rhode Island since 1994. So thirty year, no need for your calculators. I was buying my first legal pack of cigarettes when the last rabies diagnoses hit RI.

I think the strange part of this story is that in 2020, someone else had to kill a coyote with their bare hands, in this case to save their family.

So do people in Rhode Island just grow up knowing how to kill coyotes with their bare hands? They teach that in Phys Ed?

I do know how they did it, but if I told you, you’d probably not like the guy that much. And not that that matters to me; I’m just trying to preserve your Valentine’s Day cheer. Best you not know.

More from Liam Sweeny…