HOW RABIES KILLS

' Rabies claims the life of one person every 10 minutes,This is a sad story of how a bat snuffed out the life of Zach Jones. A bird had flown into his room and he got bitten without knowing it, He had the window screens down . He'd woken to find a bat fluttering around his face and a friend who was around just dropped a towel over the bat and threw it out of the window – luckily she didn't come into contact with it at the time or we may have lost her as well. At the time they had no idea that rabies could occur in bats and so we thought nothing more of it.Read what led to his death. Zach was very athletic and loved sport. He was a swimmer and played football regularly. He was very healthy and careful about what medications he put into his body. Looking back, he showed some minor symptoms early on – he had a slight cough and a runny nose – but I put that down to springtime allergies. On May 4 though, he displayed some rabies symptoms. He came home from school and said: "Mom, there's something very wrong with my mind, I can't explain it." He told us that he'd been coming home on the bus and that he'd felt very frightened by the loud noises it was making. He seemed very agitated but the really classic symptom he showed was what we now know as hydrophobia – he tried to drink but he couldn't swallow. He said if he drank the water, he wouldn't be able to breathe. He went to bed that night and at 2.30am he woke up and came to tell me again that there was something very wrong. I switched on the light in the kitchen and he cowered away from it. He said he'd been awake all night and he'd been hallucinating. We took him to the emergency room at around 4am. We had no idea what could be wrong. Zach was transferred to the children's hospital in Houston, where they did some tests. Because he was a teenager they decided he must have taken drugs, but we knew Zach was a good kid and we knew he was not the type to do that. He was then transferred to a mental facility, where they then told us that he was not a mental patient but a medical patient and he did not belong there, so it was back to the hospital. That is why, to this day, I always a led to his death.dvise people to get a second opinion. Unfortunately medical staff are not always right. Early the next morning, the same neighbour of mine who had thrown the bat out of Zach's room came to the hospital. She had suddenly remembered the bat and wondered if it had any significance. The doctor said there was very little chance it had any relevance, but I asked if they could do a rabies test and, two days later, it came back positive. A few days afterwards, on May 12, we lost our son Zach. We know there are many others whose lives have been saved because of Zach. In my husband Larry's family alone, eight members including cousins and nieces have been bitten by bats since Zach died, and because of his story they all knew to get vaccinated. It's so important to educate others about rabies because people, including health officials, don't know that it still exists where we live. Aside from this a lot of doctors tend to play down the threat and try to say the risk is low, and then because of that people do not get vaccinated. The sad thing is that it is completely preventable if people know the facts and get the right medical advice. Larry and I are trying to raise awareness about this in our community. We've set up the Zach Jones Memorial Fund and we have annual fundraisers. The community donates items to be sold for auction, and we also do a golf tournament. Last year we raised $85,000 and we want to use this money to educate people about the dangers of contracting this disease. At the moment we're funding the Texas State Health Department's poster competition about rabies which will help people, especially school children, to be more informed. We have also set up a scholarship in Zach's name to enable kids in the area to go to college. Doing this makes us feel better about what has happened. If we knew then what we know now, Zach would still be alive, but if we can save even one more life by doing this, it makes the pain of losing him a little easier to bear. Rabies is fatal but preventable, vaccinate your pets. stay away from wild animals//stray animals. Bat-proof your homes.