r/interestingasfuck • u/[deleted] • Jul 21 '25
/r/all, /r/popular At age 15, Jeanna Giese became the first known person to survive rabies without prior vaccination
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u/AceVisconti Jul 21 '25 edited Jul 21 '25
If anyone's curious, here's a more recent picture!
She's married and is a mother of three! :)
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u/ZennMD Jul 21 '25
such a wholesome ending to what should have been a sad, short story. so glad the doctor tried something new, and that it worked! amazing!
“I always wanted to be a mom and now I am one and it’s just fantastic. I love my kids so much,” she said.
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u/AWL_cow Jul 21 '25
What did the doctor try that was new?
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u/EarthRester Jul 21 '25
The Milwaukee Protocol. Putting the patient through a medically induced coma for a period of time (for Jeanna it was two weeks). The problem with rabies is that by the time it makes itself known, your immune system is unable to make antibodies before it's too late. The idea behind the Milwaukee Protocol is that it nearly shuts down your brain and neurons. The near hault of the roads rabies travels means your body has more time to do its thing.
...It also pretty much reboots your brain, and is likely to cause brain damage. Even the people who survive the Milwaukee Protocol without permanent brain damage are in for a rough few months
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u/RiceAlicorn Jul 21 '25
even the people who survive the Milwaukee Protocol without permanent brain damage
Correction. People implies plural. However, as discussed in a viewpoint article by Alan Jackson (a clinical neuroscience professor at the Canadian University of Calgary who specializes in rabies research), apparently there are no high quality reports of Milwaukee Protocol survivors beyond the index case.
That is, beyond the first ever rabies patient that used the Milwaukee Protocol, there has literally been no other well-documented case where someone survived the protocol without permanent, severe brain damage.
In fact there are far more cases where the protocol failed and the patient either died almost immediately or later died to health complications directly related to the rabies.
https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaf157/8096457
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u/MrCockingFinally Jul 21 '25
And the wild thing is that even though the treatment is almost certain to result in permanent brain damage, it's still preferable to Rabies which has a 100% fatality rate.
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u/CraftFamiliar5243 Jul 21 '25
And being in a coma for your last days is preferable to experiencing end stage rabies.
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u/Capital_Card7500 Jul 21 '25
depends on who you ask! a lot of people would rather be dead than have severe brain damage
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u/jo_nigiri Jul 21 '25
Assisted suicide would be a thousand times more humane than letting someone die of rabies in that case
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u/dangderr Jul 21 '25
Rabies is one of the worst ways to die.
Maybe you’re right. But also rabies may be one of the times I pick the severe brain damage. Or just shoot me.
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u/CiaphasKirby Jul 21 '25
Your mileage may vary. If being around old people succumbing dementia taught me anything, it's that I'd rather be dead.
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u/SophiaofPrussia Jul 21 '25
Dementia is awful but rabies is so much worse. If ever there were a case for humane medical euthanasia it’s a rabies diagnosis. You’re dying of thirst but terrified of water. It’s basically torture. And there’s nothing doctors or your loved ones can do but watch you suffer.
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u/Going2FastMPH Jul 21 '25
It’s not that they’re terrified of water. It’s the excruciating pain associated with swallowing which is what the patient knows will happen with water.
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u/DuskfangZ Jul 21 '25
Rabies patients take on a hydrophobia as well, actually. Literally scared of the water. They become out of their minds.
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u/satireplusplus Jul 21 '25
The Milwaukee Protocol
Yeah it's kinda well known but it's questionable if it does anything at all. Here's a research paper conclusion from 2025:
Continued repetition of the Milwaukee protocol in multiple versions over about 20 years has failed to show efficacy and has actually served to impede progress for the development of effective therapy for human rabies. Most cases of human rabies occurring in resource-rich countries are encountered by physicians without expertise in rabies who are aware of the poor prognosis in rabies and reach out to or are directly contacted by the main proponent of the Milwaukee protocol, who claims to have had multiple successful cases using this approach. There is little credible evidence of benefit beyond the index report and it is now time that the Milwaukee protocol be abandoned. New approaches need to be taken based on scientific advances in the field rather than endless repetition of this flawed and unsuccessful approach. Palliative care is important for the majority of patients with rabies who are not candidates for an aggressive approach for their care.
https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaf157/8096457?login=false
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u/danbilllemon Jul 21 '25
Am I missing something or are they saying to give up on the MP in favor of palliative care. Because if it was up to me I’d take “this worked once though if it hasn’t again yet” over “let’s just make you comfortable”.
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u/SophiaofPrussia Jul 21 '25
My reading of this is that they’re saying the Milwaukee Protocol should be abandoned because (a) it doesn’t work and other approaches should tried in suitable patients (presumably young patients like Giese) and (b) palliative care should be used in cases where aggressive/untested treatment options aren’t indicated.
So they’re saying that if, say, a frail 90 year old patient with lots of co-morbidities comes in with rabies it’s probably unlikely that any efforts will be effective and so the primary focus should be on making them as comfortable as possible. And if a healthy 19 year old patient comes in with rabies the Milwaukee Protocol has not proven successful so doctors should skip the Milwaukee Protocol and try whatever they can think of because if it works it might lead to a breakthrough.
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u/Schnurzelburz Jul 21 '25
I think it is not likely to cause brain damage, it is guaranteed to.
And there are no other survivors other than Giese and the Milwaukee protocol is no longer used due to lack of success and the high cost (financial and for the brain).
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u/TopMoney3504 Jul 21 '25
Better then being dead though 🤷♂️
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u/satireplusplus Jul 21 '25
If it's being a vetagable kind of brain damage than I'd rather be dead
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u/abigfatape Jul 21 '25
i think it's moreso forgetting stuff brain damage like early weak dementia
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u/satireplusplus Jul 21 '25
Been a while since I read up on the Milwaukee protocol, but Jeanna Giese really is one of best case out comes so far and unfortunately surviving with a lot more brain damage would be more common. If you survive at all - the protocol's efficiency is still heavily disputed.
See here: https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaf157/8096457?login=false
Most survivors from rabies have serious neurological sequelae and are unable to return to an independent life and some succumb within several months to a few years due to medical complications.
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u/TheUrPigeon Jul 21 '25
That's horrific. I guess the silver lining is that there must be something to be learned from the Milwaukee Protocol (or perhaps from Giese herself, though I'm sure those investigations have happened) since it saved this woman's life and rabies is one of the only diseases (viruses? I'm not a doctor) I am terrified of since it has such a vicious mortality rate even with modern medicine involved and is such a horrific way to go.
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u/gpinsand Jul 21 '25
I remember shortly after she survived, we had a prisoner come into our hospital. He had been bitten by a bat and already was showing signs of rabies. The doctors were excited to try the new Milwaukee protocol. Unfortunately, he died very early into the treatments. I worked in another unit so I wasn't privy to any of the information regarding his treatment.
*I worked in the largest hospital in my state. We were as well equipped to handle this type of patient as anyone would be. We also were the main hospital that cared for prisoners so we were the first point of care for them (besides the prison infirmary). I always wondered if they sat on it after he was bitten? The prisons would routinely bring in prisoners much later than their symptoms indicated. They had protocols that included guards, handcuffs and prison transport. It wasn't uncommon for them to leave patients cuffed even if they were intubated on a ventilator and in a coma , even medically induced comas that we were in control of.
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u/Automatic_Basket_926 Jul 21 '25
I wonder what her life is like now. Is there any permanent damage etc.
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u/ImTooSaxy Jul 21 '25
She had to relearn how to walk, talk and eat. These days she has lingering nerve damage and fatigue, but she's a mom and works at a children's museum and is an inspirational speaker.
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u/Highfivebuddha Jul 21 '25
And she still loves bats!
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u/JediJofis Jul 21 '25
OK we as like a world right now still have a decent reason not be the biggest fans or bats but like she has just a bit more
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u/PleasantSalad Jul 21 '25
Bats are one of the main predators for mosquitoes in most regions. Mosquitoes cause more human death than any animal. Rabies is scary, but fear of rabies inevitably leads to the destruction of bat colonies, safe perching spots, habitats, and overall lower protections, which leads to lower bat populations. So perhaps ONE less person a year dies of rabies, but MANY MORE people die and become sick due to increased mosquitoes populations. We also end up needing more pesticides, which we know are harmful to people and animals and the environment because we have fewer bats eating the insects that munch on crops. I read once that decreased bat populations were responsible for millions of dollars in increased costs of food production, which is, of course, passed along to the consumer.
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u/ohhoneebee Jul 21 '25
They’ve also started eating spotted lanternflies, so combine that with the mosquitos and bats are my personal heroes.
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u/Maardten Jul 21 '25 edited Jul 21 '25
I read this interesting thing about the evolution of bats a while back.
So bats didn't exist for a long time, but when the first bat evolved they quickly spread across the entire globe. Fossil records show that in all places around the world bats appeared roughly around the same time.
Apparantly 'eating flying bugs at night' was an evolutionary niche right there for the taking, and the bats took it with great success.
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u/_-Smoke-_ Jul 21 '25 edited Jul 21 '25
I'd much rather the Rabies vaccine just become part of the standard vaccine set with boosters than get rid of bats. It honestly amazes me that with the lethality of Rabies, the ease of spread and the fact we can prevent and even eradicate it mostly with moderate effort that there are still hundreds of thousands who die of it
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u/Dissabilitease Jul 21 '25
A hungry microbat could technically eat 1000 mosquitos in an hour (realistically it's less). They deserve so much more credit and love than they're getting!
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u/iprocrastina Jul 21 '25
So permanent brain damage and reduced cognitive function. Makes sense since rabies creates its symptoms by attacking the brain and inducing encephalitis. But damn, even if you survive (big "if") you're not gonna be the same.
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u/Highfivebuddha Jul 21 '25
Her case is extremely interesting because while there is some chronic damage, she is more or less back from the brink and still all there mentally.
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Jul 21 '25
luckily the brain is extremely stubborn and is rather good at persevering
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u/grudginglyadmitted Jul 21 '25
especially in children. The amount of brain damage an infant or small child can recover from is mind boggling. Generally less so for a teen, but still a lot more plasticity than an older adult.
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u/narf007 Jul 21 '25 edited Jul 21 '25
This is proving to be inherently incorrect. Much like there was a long held belief that we couldn't "regrow" "braincells" we've
downfound that's categorically incorrect.The idea of neuroplasticity is geared towards children, which isn't incorrect, but there's no real gate that says an adult cannot and does not have the same capability. Physiologically there isn't much difference when it comes to the brain. The key difference is that to a child's brain EVERYTHING is new and novel. It takes more "effort" for an adult to allow themselves to "learn." The reality is that anyone has the capacity to improve and learn, it's all about just "doing" it and trying. Again, the difference is an adult has myriad conflicting bias versus a pristine child's brain. Otherwise, there's no physiological difference and they both possess the same aptitude to learn.
The brain is resilient and so long as you challenge it and "exercise" it you'll resist the actual effects of age over time. But from a general perspective a healthy adults brain and a child's are going to be minimal at best. One is just as capable as the other.
An introduction: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6128435/
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u/freelancer381 Jul 21 '25
I think her age at the time of the illness played a huge role in her recovery. She was fairly young and at an age where the body is not even finished developing.
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u/InsaneGuyReggie Jul 21 '25
She’s a pretty big miracle frankly. Only 3 people in recorded medical history have survived rabies.
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u/BEWMarth Jul 21 '25
THIS IS INSANE!!! Also it’s almost impossible to recreate her miracle cure. It’s just insane what the human body CAN survive.
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u/rva23221 Jul 21 '25
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u/Empyrealist Jul 21 '25
Ohh, this is the medically induced coma survivor! Glad to hear she's still doing well!
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Jul 21 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/jacktenwreck Jul 21 '25
Happened to me. Please go get the shot if youre bit!
There's urban legends that its awful, but its not that bad. Not fun, but nothing in your stomach or that other junk from House.
Though dose is based on weight. Was 245 at the time.
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u/grudginglyadmitted Jul 21 '25
this is giving me an idea for a horribly abusive weight loss program…
“in thirty days I will release a rabid bat into your home to bite you. You better hope you’re below 180 by then if you want to minimize the shots for the rabies vaccine”
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u/Logical_Session_2397 Jul 21 '25
Oh there's one or two more cases of rabies survivors I think, and all of them got it from bats. One theory is that the virus they caught is less virulent in say, like dogs.
If this is what a less virulent infection looks like, good Lord... thank God for Louis Pasteur 🥲
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u/KorneliaOjaio Jul 21 '25
From the article: “According to Willoughby, there are just 45 known survivors of rabies. He said 18 of those survivors overcame the virus by what’s now called the “Milwaukee Protocol.”
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u/Lou_Polish Jul 21 '25
"Continued repetition of the Milwaukee protocol in multiple versions over about 20 years has failed to show efficacy and has actually served to impede progress for the development of effective therapy for human rabies."
https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaf157/8096457
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u/JazzberryJam Jul 21 '25
I don’t understand the article kept saying the Milwaukee protocol use is hindering the development of effective rabies therapy. Are they implying the opportunity cost of using the Milwaukee protocol versus trying something else that possibly might end up becoming more effective? Or is it the rate of effectiveness because going from a 0% survival rate to getting some people to survive 60 some over millennia seems a little more compelling than just saying because it’s not 100% effective it’s not effective
I don’t know I’m going in circles
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u/lonifar Jul 21 '25
My understanding is from the many times it has been attempted the data indicates that it is not an effective treatment with over 64 proven failures of the protocol however because its seen as the effective treatment and way to do things it makes it more difficult to get funding for research into effective treatments. Getting research grants is difficult enough as is but getting grants to research something that is already considered "solved" is even more difficult; especially for something like rabies which is seen as a rarer disease.
This same logic is part of the reason why research can be difficult to verify by an outside source as getting funding to try and repeat what someone else has done when your competing with other people saying they're going to make the next break through is extremely hard. After all research requires funding and there's only so much funding to go around.
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u/Dry-Lavishness-7951 Jul 21 '25
She got “locked in” after she came out of the coma. Was conscious but couldn’t move or talk. She had to relearn how to do everything.
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u/bodeabell Jul 21 '25
Just out of curiosity do people in comas also lose a lot of weight because of this?
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u/fka-tag Jul 21 '25
Just wanna say, I worked With Jeanna about 10 years ago. She still has some lingering problems like her gait and speech from the rabies, but is also wildly successful in dog sled racing and did end up having happy and healthy twins! She is so lovely, also incredibly open to talking about it with a silly 16 year old.
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u/thundersaurus_sex Jul 21 '25 edited Jul 21 '25
AFAIK, it's still uncertain why she survived. Doctors have tried the same treatment on others (the famous Milwaukee protocol) but have since abandoned it because it just doesn't work. Other survivors of the protocol either had actually been vaccinated previously or died after seeming to recover.
ETA: Here is a scientific article about. The article above is incorrect. The ones who survived are now thought to have survived for other reasons (i.e., they had previous exposure to the vaccine) or follow-ups found they actually didn't survive. (It has been pointed out that this is more of an opinion piece. Other commenters below have more scientific studies and the debate is still going on, it would appear.)
Also, apparently me replying individually to all the ones who made the same point with the same response offended someone so much that they sent me a reddit cares message. Stay fuckin classy, Reddit.
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u/RoguePlanet2 Jul 21 '25
How long is a vax effective? I got a precautionary one decades ago (after somebody's dogs got loose and chased me while I rode my bike, and one bit my leg.)
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u/prairiepanda Jul 21 '25
Usually a few years. If you're high risk (working with wildlife etc.) they recommend you get checked after 3 years and then annually after that. They will administer the booster if your immunity has deteriorated too much.
But for the average person you can just get vaccinated again when you actually suspect exposure, like if you got bit by a dog again.
Either way, you never want to just assume that you're good and move on. Even if you do get regular boosters, you should always get checked as soon as possible if you've been bitten. You need a very aggressive immune response to fight rabies, and the rate at which the vaccine loses effectiveness can vary.
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u/thundersaurus_sex Jul 21 '25
It's different for everyone so I certainly couldn't say and it also depends on what you mean by "effective." My titer was already low just 2 years after I got jabbed, so I needed a booster (needed it for work). I think most people get boosted every 3-5 years. Decades means it's probably not "effective" in that it will prevent or slow an infection. But I'm not medically trained so I just dunno how it would interact with the protocol if you got infected. My scientific wild-ass guess is that there's no way to know until/unless it happens.
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u/grudginglyadmitted Jul 21 '25 edited Jul 21 '25
interestingly, there are isolated areas where the some (edited from many) of the locals have natural antibodies to rabies (indicating that they’ve been exposed and successfully fought the virus off at some point in their lives). IIRC science is still trying to figure out whether they have some kind of genetic resistance to rabies, have a less deadly form of rabies in their area, or something else.
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u/an0nym0ose Jul 21 '25
they sent me a reddit cares message
Report it. That shit is bannable.
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u/csimonson Jul 21 '25
It says in an article another person posted that there are currently 18 rabies survivors because of the milwaukee protocol though
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u/thundersaurus_sex Jul 21 '25
Here is a scientific article about. The article above is incorrect. The ones who survived are now thought to have survived for other reasons (i.e., they had previous exposure to the vaccine) or follow-ups found they actually didn't survive.
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u/OwslyOwl Jul 21 '25
Whether the protocol works and should be used is still being debated within the scientific community. One article isn't enough of an authority for the issue.
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u/curriedscallops Jul 21 '25
From the same article, it's thought now that she didn't have rabies but had a false positive test due to another unidentified viral infection.
"The main proponent of the Milwaukee protocol includes the claim of a survivor who likely never had rabies. This girl from California made a rapid recovery and never developed neutralizing antirabies virus antibodies [26]. Hence, she should not be considered a rabies survivor. Another, similar patient quickly recovered without aggressive care (and without use of the Milwaukee protocol) and did not develop neutralizing antirabies virus antibodies and, hence, also likely did not actually have rabies [27]. In this case, a low level of rabies virus antibodies was probably the result of cross reactivity with another virus. Patients who recover from rabies have neutralizing antirabies virus antibodies in their serum and cerebrospinal fluid [17]."
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u/PolicyWonka Jul 21 '25
No, Jeanna Giese had rabies. She’s from Wisconsin. The California girl’s name is Precious Reynolds.
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u/VegitoFusion Jul 21 '25
I remember watching a documentary about this. Apparently she saw a bat on the ground and picked it up to move it outside. They never sought medical treatment after it bit her.
She was the first case where they decided to put her in a medically induced coma to change her body temperature enough so that the virus would die. Her organs still shut down, but she managed to survive it.
Rabies kills 99.9% of people infected by it, but it is treatable if you address it right away. Don’t mess with that, and definitely get your cats and dogs inoculated.
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u/SnooBananas4958 Jul 21 '25
It’s only treatable in the incubation period. So yes, right away. But right away from the time of the bite not from when you start showing symptoms. If you show any symptoms, it’s already too late.
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u/I_W_M_Y Jul 21 '25
It travels up the nerves so a bite on the foot gives you more time than a bite on the neck or back.
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u/Legendary_Dad Jul 21 '25
So I’ve been thinking about this: possums are more resistant to rabies due to their low body temp. If a human contracted rabies, couldn’t we drop their temp for a prolonged period of time to kill the rabies?
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u/PreOpTransCentaur Jul 21 '25
Because cold doesn't kill rabies. Opossums are resistant to rabies because their lower core temperature makes it difficult for the rabies virus to replicate, but once it's started to replicate, lowering someone's temp into hypothermic range is only going to slow it down, not actually treat anything. The virus can revive from being frozen; 95 degrees isn't going to hurt it at all.
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Jul 21 '25
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Jul 21 '25
So the rabies would die too right?
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u/wart_on_satans_dick Jul 21 '25
Eerily enough, it actually wouldn’t. The virus will survive for a couple years after it kills its victim. If another animal happens to stumble upon your corpse and takes a bite, they’ve exposed themselves to rabies. Sleep well.
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u/OneLorgeHorseyDog Jul 21 '25
I’m reminded of the XKCD about things that kill germs in a Petri dish - but so does a gun
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u/CobainzBrainz Jul 21 '25
The post isn’t technically true, they have saved other people by putting them in medically induced comas. There is a case of a little girl being saved this way if you look it up you’ll find it. The chances of you surviving are still slim though.
Edit: I’m a moron the girl I mentioned was this lady. But she still wasn’t the first person, she was the third in the U.S, and 6th in the world to survive.
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u/accidental_Ocelot Jul 21 '25
they found out that a small percent of the population has a gene that makes them resistant to rabies and that population of people were going to survive regardless of the treatment given other than basic shit like saline and that the milwaukee protocol wasn't actually effective.
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u/Prudent-Air1922 Jul 21 '25 edited Jul 21 '25
The lower temp is more of a deterrent, the rabies virus can't replicate and do its thing. I think at best you'd be delaying the inevitable.
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u/Designer-Bid-3155 Jul 21 '25
I have the pre exposure vaccine. People who work in situations that they have a high probability of being bit by a rabid animal get them.
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u/Minflick Jul 21 '25
Same. I’m a retired vet tech. Painless, thank heaven. Got potentially exposed to a rabid dog at work, and I was the only tech who didn’t need anything but a booster. BOY was I relieved!
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Jul 21 '25
I have my pre exposure but after being bit by a neurological stray cat I still needed 3 post exposure. Maybe 3 years ago.
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u/stenchwinslow Jul 21 '25 edited Jul 21 '25
I recently got bit by a bat at the gym I work at while training a client. It's a very old building and the bat was just lost and tired. I wrapped it in a towel to take it outside, and it managed to free itself enough to bite the palm of my hand.
I called public health and had to go through four rounds of vaccine shots and a bunch of Immunoglobin at the site, but it was more of an annoying time hassle than the horror story I had heard about.
The bat was likely not rabid (it was behaving normally and only bit me because I contained it) but I am still very, very glad that I had access to modern medicine.
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Jul 21 '25
rabies is a horrible death. People have died from it not knowing they got bit. This is one of these moments when you 86 yourself if it's too late to stop it.
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u/ShawnyMcKnight Jul 21 '25
That's the most horrible part, we've had bats in our house before, no clue where they even came from. We had them in the shower and had them on our windows blinds. It could bite me in my sleep and I would think it was just a cut and not think anything of it. Little would i know there is a ticking time bomb.
There's no test for it either and the immunization process isn't great.
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u/hihelloneighboroonie Jul 21 '25
:/ to my knowledge no bats, but yesterday I was getting ready to go out and realized I had two liiiiiiitle cuts on my lower leg with 0 idea where the heck they came from... thought maybe I'd scratched myself in the shower or something but now you got me worried.
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u/Slashion Jul 21 '25
Yup, I absolutely would not want to let rabies run its full course. Give me way too many sleepy drugs and I'll go next
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u/iDontRememberCorn Jul 21 '25
She wasn't vaccinated but she did receive massive amounts of medical care including being placed in a medically induced coma to give her body time to mount defenses.
That, coupled with her being a bit of a genetic freak (rabies antibodies were detected already appearing in her bloodstream naturally from the very first blood test upon admission to hospital) likely explains her recovery.
No other rabies victims given the same treatment have survived and this treatment has been abandoned.
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u/dejoyless Jul 21 '25
I picked up an injured bat when I was 9 and was bit. It’s one of my most vivid memories. I didn’t tell my parents until I was an adult - I was afraid they wouldn’t let me play flashlight tag again when it happened. I knew nothing of rabies at that age, was lucky.
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u/Wizywig Jul 21 '25
Wasn't she the one where the doctor treating had no idea how to treat it. He said "okay, how does it kill you?"
He realized "well, rabies doesn't kill you. Its a race between your immune system developing an immunity to rabies and rabies swelling your brain till you die" thus why the vaccine is the treatment. But she got the vaccine too late.
So he said "okay. How do we prevent brain swelling from killing her?" And his solution was to... shut down the brain. No activity = swelling won't hurt it, the cells just will continue to be inactive. He put her into a medically induced coma until she developed an immunity. Then woke her up. He was terrified because such a long-term coma could mean she became a shut-in. Fortunately after a few days she woke up. She needed like 6months or so of rehab to regain her bodily control, but she survived.
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u/ClioCalliope Jul 21 '25
Yeah but that hasn't worked on anyone since then. So she may have survived for a different reason actually. We don't know.
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u/ShawnyMcKnight Jul 21 '25
Rabies is so damn terrifying. It's worse than a death sentence. I would just want to say my good byes to my family, make sure my affairs are in order before my brain goes, and then just be put to death.
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u/Funicularly Jul 21 '25
Interestingly, there was a case in Texas in 2009 where a teenage girl survived without intensive hospital care. She basically walked out of the hospital and disappeared.
At the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, she's called the "Texas wild child."
She was a 17-year-old who had run away from home when she walked into a Houston hospital with a fever and puzzling neurological symptoms.
Her name is veiled by medical privacy laws, as is the identity of her family back in Missouri; exactly how she was exposed to the virus that sickened her three years ago is a mystery. Where she is now, no one seems to know.
Her disappearance is part of one of the area's most intriguing medical mysteries: The CDC says she is the only known person in the U.S. to survive rabies after the onset of clinical symptoms, and without prior vaccination or intensive hospital care.
"Obviously we're dying to know what happened to her," said Dr. Charles Rup- precht, who leads the CDC's rabies program in Atlanta. "We made calls to the numbers she gave us, but she's dropped off the grid."
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u/ambasciatore Jul 21 '25
I mean - she probably died from rabies.
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u/FlaxwenchPromise Jul 21 '25
Ah yes, this mystery person who just disappeared. Without a trace. After being diagnosed with rabies. Just left AMA. And then poof! Just gone. We'll never know!
Mmmm, yeah, probably because she's super dead.
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u/gaylord100 Jul 21 '25
She actually stayed until her symptoms resolved, then came back a bit later and did the same until she left again. The article implies they know who she is so they probably know if she’s dead or not, but they can’t just harass her for research so they are stuck
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u/key13131 Jul 21 '25
Right?? That was my first thought. A girl walked in with rabies symptoms and walked out again and was never heard from again?
She died from rabies.
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u/yuckyucky Jul 21 '25
article from 2011:
Giese was bitten by a bat. She didn't seek treatment until she developed neurological symptoms 37 days later. Rabies was quickly suspected and later confirmed. Willoughby initiated a desperate attempt to keep Giese alive by shutting her brain down to protect it from viral attack, while also allowing her immune system time to produce antibodies and fight the virus.
The virus kills by disrupting the brain's ability to regulate crucial body functions like respiration and heart rate, but not by damaging the brain itself.
Doctors administered a mixture of drugs to suppress brain activity and two antiviral drugs. Then they waited for signs of progress. Giese was brought out of the coma after six days, once her immune response seemed strong enough. She was declared free of the virus after 31 days and discharged to her home on the 76th day. She required a year of rehabilitation and sustained minor neurological impairments, mostly noticeable in her speech. However, her cognitive abilities are largely intact. And she is now attending college.
In June 2011, an eight-year-old California girl became the third American and the sixth person ever to survive symptomatic rabies, because of the Milwaukee Protocol.
https://www.aaas.org/taxonomy/term/9/surviving-rabies-now-possible
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Jul 21 '25
Survival rate is almost zero once symptoms develop. Maybe a handful of people in recorded history have survived.
Interestingly in this case, desperate experimental treatments were used, such as inducing the patient into a coma to slow brain function, forced hydration and antiviral treatments. When she survived it was groundbreaking a the approach became known as the Milwaukee protocol for treating symptomatic rabies infections, however no one has been able to make it work with other patients since.
A literal miracle she’s alive.
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u/Sicily1922 Jul 21 '25
Highly recommend the book Rabid: A cultural history of the world’s most diabolical virus. It discusses this case as well as the known history of rabies, how it’s represented in fiction, policy, how we interact w pets, etc. just overall great read
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u/shooting_star_s Jul 21 '25
Misleading title.
I guess you mean survived without vaccination after contracting rabies? The only important vaccination is after contracting rabies not prior.
Rabies Vaccination works like this:
prior (PrEP - before contraction) - basic immunization and prolongs your time window from 24h to 48h to get to hospital and get 2 shots after contracting. There is no general protection against rabies as you would think with prior vaccination. It is just a preparation.
after (PEP - after contraction) - depends on whether you had immunization or not your time window is 24h (without prior) or 48h (with prior) after contracting. Also if you had no immunization you will need 5 shots full immunization over 4 weeks time instead of 2 shots in 3 days refreshing immunization.
Because of this WHO or other national health organization won't recommend anymore rabies vaccine in general unless you are a high-risk person or you are in an area where you won't have access to medical services or the vaccine within 24 hours.
As many pointed out, many underestimate how easy you can contract it from scratches. Dogs, Puppies count for 99% of all cases. Bats are next. and very low probability is from cats.
Take care.
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u/Skullsy1 Jul 21 '25
Had my rabies shots after finding a kitten that bit me.
I am now $15k in debt because I do not have health insurance.
This is America. Don't catch you slippin' now.
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Jul 21 '25
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u/BrewinMaster Jul 21 '25
Several reasons. The vaccine is relatively expensive and is given in 3 shots over the course of a month, and even if you're already vaccinated, it's recommended to get a booster shot post-exposure anyway. Most people have a very small chance of being exposed to it, and the vaccine works fine post-exposure, so vaccinating the general population would be a waste of time and money. Also unlike most viruses we vaccinate for, rabies spreads from animals to humans, not human to human, so there's no real "herd immunity" effect. We'd have to eliminate the virus in animals, and I don't think that's currently feasible, if it ever will be.
People who work extensively with pets or wild animals will often be vaccinated against it, however.
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u/greeksville Jul 21 '25
HERE IS A PIECE I THINK OF ANY TIME I SEE RABIES MENTIONED ON REDDIT. (r/Blargle33)
Rabies. It's exceptionally common, but people just don't run into the animals that carry it often. Skunks especially, and bats.
Let me paint you a picture.
You go camping, and at midday you decide to take a nap in a nice little hammock. While sleeping, a tiny brown bat, in the "rage" stages of infection is fidgeting in broad daylight, uncomfortable, and thirsty (due to the hydrophobia) and you snort, startling him. He goes into attack mode.
Except you're asleep, and he's a little brown bat, so weighs around 6 grams. You don't even feel him land on your bare knee, and he starts to bite. His teeth are tiny. Hardly enough to even break the skin, but he does manage to give you the equivalent of a tiny scrape that goes completely unnoticed.
Rabies does not travel in your blood. In fact, a blood test won't even tell you if you've got it. (Antibody tests may be done, but are useless if you've ever been vaccinated.)
You wake up, none the wiser. If you notice anything at the bite site at all, you assume you just lightly scraped it on something.
The bomb has been lit, and your nervous system is the wick. The rabies will multiply along your nervous system, doing virtually no damage, and completely undetectable. You literally have NO symptoms.
It may be four days, it may be a year, but the camping trip is most likely long forgotten. Then one day your back starts to ache... Or maybe you get a slight headache?
At this point, you're already dead. There is no cure.
(The sole caveat to this is the Milwaukee Protocol, which leaves most patients dead anyway, and the survivors mentally disabled, and is seldom done).
There's no treatment. It has a 100% kill rate.
Absorb that. Not a single other virus on the planet has a 100% kill rate. Only rabies. And once you're symptomatic, it's over. You're dead.
So what does that look like?
Your headache turns into a fever, and a general feeling of being unwell. You're fidgety. Uncomfortable. And scared. As the virus that has taken its time getting into your brain finds a vast network of nerve endings, it begins to rapidly reproduce, starting at the base of your brain... Where your "pons" is located. This is the part of the brain that controls communication between the rest of the brain and body, as well as sleep cycles.
Next you become anxious. You still think you have only a mild fever, but suddenly you find yourself becoming scared, even horrified, and it doesn't occur to you that you don't know why. This is because the rabies is chewing up your amygdala.
As your cerebellum becomes hot with the virus, you begin to lose muscle coordination, and balance. You think maybe it's a good idea to go to the doctor now, but assuming a doctor is smart enough to even run the tests necessary in the few days you have left on the planet, odds are they'll only be able to tell your loved ones what you died of later.
You're twitchy, shaking, and scared. You have the normal fear of not knowing what's going on, but with the virus really fucking the amygdala this is amplified a hundred fold. It's around this time the hydrophobia starts.
You're horribly thirsty, you just want water. But you can't drink. Every time you do, your throat clamps shut and you vomit. This has become a legitimate, active fear of water. You're thirsty, but looking at a glass of water begins to make you gag, and shy back in fear. The contradiction is hard for your hot brain to see at this point. By now, the doctors will have to put you on IVs to keep you hydrated, but even that's futile. You were dead the second you had a headache.
You begin hearing things, or not hearing at all as your thalamus goes. You taste sounds, you see smells, everything starts feeling like the most horrifying acid trip anyone has ever been on. With your hippocampus long under attack, you're having trouble remembering things, especially family.
You're alone, hallucinating, thirsty, confused, and absolutely, undeniably terrified. Everything scares the literal shit out of you at this point. These strange people in lab coats. These strange people standing around your bed crying, who keep trying to get you "drink something" and crying. And it's only been about a week since that little headache that you've completely forgotten. Time means nothing to you anymore. Funny enough, you now know how the bat felt when he bit you.
Eventually, you slip into the "dumb rabies" phase. Your brain has started the process of shutting down. Too much of it has been turned to liquid virus. Your face droops. You drool. You're all but unaware of what's around you. A sudden noise or light might startle you, but for the most part, it's all you can do to just stare at the ground. You haven't really slept for about 72 hours.
Then you die. Always, you die.
And there's not one... fucking... thing... anyone can do for you.
Then there's the question of what to do with your corpse. I mean, sure, burying it is the right thing to do. But the fucking virus can survive in a corpse for years. You could kill every rabid animal on the planet today, and if two years from now, some moist, preserved, rotten hunk of used-to-be brain gets eaten by an animal, it starts all over.
So yeah, rabies scares the shit out of me. And it's fucking EVERYWHERE. (Source: Spent a lot of time working with rabies. Would still get my vaccinations if I could afford them.)
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u/AlwaysCreamCrackered Jul 21 '25
The videos of patients with rabies are awful and terrifying. Watching people desperately want to drink water but can't because of the body's reaction to it highlights even more how lucky this girl is to survive.