Porcupines and the Women who Love them

Just a quick story about a Trooper's life.

Many years ago I was working a night shift in Routt County Colorado.  Routt County is a mix of new, touristy ski areas in the beautiful city of Steamboat Springs, and rustic, traditional farmers and ranchers who's families have worked that land for generations.  Most often these two cultures get along just fine, but occasionally folks roll through that town who don't really understand the ways of the wild.  

Steamboat is a bit like Disney world, a beautiful, manufactured tourist area surrounded by stunningly beautiful and sometimes brutal Colorado mountains.  Every year unprepared hunters and skiers invade the countryside, most handle the terrain and altitude just fine, but others aren't prepared for some of the lessons that Colorado will teach you.  These folks just don't have an understanding about the circle of life and what a true wild animal is.  

These are the same folks that after hitting a deer in their rented Ford Explorer, will demand a vet show up to tend to it.  Well, as luck would have it,  we just happen to carry little .40 caliber veterinarians with us so it is never a problem.  

This was a fantastic midsummer's night.  It was about 1:30 am and I was just finishing up an incident on Rabbit Ears Pass.  Rabbit Ears sits just East of Steamboat and Colorado 40 runs directly over the top of it.  The pass is filled with 6% grades and can be absolutely brutal in the winter, but this was summer and a beautiful one at that.  After the paperwork was complete, killing trees one page at a time was absolutely essential in mid-90's law enforcement, I sat on the push bumper of the patrol car and just soaked in the tranquility.  

I always loved working at night.  The nights, especially toward the early morning hours, can take on a certain peacefulness when you're sitting on a mountain pass in Northern Colorado.  Knowing that everyone is tucked away sound asleep, and that if someone does decide to go off the deep end it will be yourself and probably a deputy as the final arbiter of the situation.  But this is Routt County, once out of Steamboat, the county takes on a very rural feeling, filled with good folks who take care of their own, and will police their own when necessary, so tonight was going to be a slow night. 

At 2 am the local Quick Stop would close and I was good friends with the night manager.  Usually I would stop by to make sure everything was ok, maybe have a sip of coffee or a 12 hour old hot dog, then be on my way.  This night was no different, a beautiful summer evening with lots of stars a cool breeze and not a car in sight.  

We stood just inside the gas station discussing the day's business when a frantic women came running in.  I'll never forget the look of fear and pain that was scrawled on her face.  Eyes wide open and red with exhilaration, short choppy breaths, not out of breath but the universal attempt at pain control.  Reminded me of those breathing techniques they teach in Lamaze classes.  

"I need a veterinarian!!" she wailed.  As she yelled this, she held up both her hands in front of her face, palms facing each other.  Protruding from each hand were at least a half-dozen porcupine quills.  Now these things were probably about 6 inches long, and not only stuck into her palms, but also up and down her right side.  

"Ma'am, you need a doctor," I offered, "the ER is just up the road."

"No! You don't understand, I hit an animal and I think it's hurt!"

You're probably already piecing together the chain of events that lead her to this moment.  Yep, she was driving down the road when Bam!! she whacks a porcupine.  Not fully understanding that these are really wild animals and not Disney cartoon characters, she decides to pick it up and put it on the bench seat of her little Toyota pickup.  She has a perfectly functional and empty pickup bed, but no, the front seat is such a better idea.  I walked up to the pickup and lo and behold the porcupine, now awake from its Toyota induced slumber,  is sitting in the drivers seat, one little porcupine paw on the steering wheel, the other on the car door and his face stuffed up against the window doing the best pissed off porcupine impression I've ever seen.  

Have you ever seen the movie Tommy Boy?  Just replace the deer with a porcupine and you get the gist of her little adventure.  I'd love to tell you that I went to my patrol car, opened the trunk and took out the porcupine quill removal system, or that somehow my training kicked in and I saved the day, but no.  I was standing there at 2 am looking at a seriously pissed porcupine, a woman covered in quills and no laws broken.  Let's face it, in America it's perfectly legal to drive around in a little 4 cylinder Noah's Arc, or be the psychotic purveyor of the worlds worst mobile petting zoo.  Yep, knock yourself out, this is your bed now sleep in it.  So off I went, leaving this poor soul with directions to the nearest ER and a story I'll never forget.   


This week was my second treatment and it has really hit me hard the last couple of days.  My blood counts were way low, pretty much zero immune system, so I really need to be careful.  Got many of the same side effects, burning face, numb fingers, amazingly tired, upset stomach...but at least its killing the disease also...hopefully.  

Thanks for the thoughts and prayers, they mean more than you can know.