The mother of the child bitten by a bear at Maymont told her story to the Richmond Times-Dispatch this week. The story, which refers to the woman only as “Julia,” answers a few questions, and at the same time, leaves a few new ones unanswered.

The biting incident occurred at around 3:30pm on Saturday, Feb. 18th. The paper carries her account of what happened:

“They were sharing an apple while walking behind the 2-acre bear habitat about 3 p.m., she said, when she turned her head for a few seconds.When she turned back around, her son had cleared the habitat’s preliminary barrier, a 4-foot wooden slat fence, and was standing outside the 10-foot chain-link fence, she said. One of the bears was sitting just on the other side.

“The bear was sitting there quiet and calm,” Julia said. “The bear was not acting aggressive in any way.”

Her son reached his hand through the fence in order to pet the bear, not feed it, she says, and did so before she could reach him.

She saw that his hand was bleeding, took one of the shirts she was wearing and wrapped it up, then carried him to her vehicle and drove him immediately to St. Mary’s hospital, where doctors cleaned out the wound and administered antibiotics.

She says she is sure that they must have mentioned rabies, but doesn’t specifically recall any such mention. Doctors asked how the bite had happened, and when she mentioned the bears, they notified the City Health Department.

Here’s where my first question comes in: why wouldn’t she go to a Maymont official first? It’s a safe bet that Maymont could have administered immediate first aid, since they have to be prepared for accidents involving their own animal keepers. They’d have been aware of the situation from the start, and could have called an ambulance to take the child to the hospital while he was already getting medical attention!

By 8pm that night, when she got home, she had received a message from the Health Department, but no one answered when she called back. She didn’t get an answer on Sunday, either. Monday, February 20th was President’s Day, a holiday.

She talked to health officials on Tuesday, but the first time the rabies process was explained to her was on Wednesday.

Another question: what did health officials talk to her about on Tuesday? We’re talking about a wild animal. She’s sure that that doctors at St. Mary’s must have mentioned rabies on Saturday, yet it wasn’t explained to her until four days after that?

And incidentally, the rabies treatment protocol has the victim receiving the first shot to protect him from rabies on “Day Zero,” the day of the bite. The second of five shots is supposed to be administered on the third day, which would have been Tuesday. So why is she getting her “first explanation” of the procedure on Wednesday?

On Thursday morning, a panel of 14 medical and wildlife experts met to determine how to handle the situation. After hours of deliberations, it was concluded that testing the bears for rabies was the only sure way to guarantee the child’s safety. At lunchtime on Thursday, the woman called the Health Department to tell them that she wanted her child to undergo the rabies treatment, and was told that the bears had already been put down.

If the city was certain enough of a risk of rabies that it went along with euthanizing the bears, why was starting the child on shots even an option on the fifth day, by which he should have already received two shots? The whole premise of putting the bears down to test them for rabies involved keeping the child safe, a motive I completely respect. But part of keeping the child safe, even a bigger part than the postmortem test, would have been giving the child the treatment as a precaution beginning the day the bite happened. Why wouldn’t the doctors not want the child to begin the treatment — to be safe — immediately? Why wouldn’t the doctors have immediately insisted on the need for such a precaution? The mother shouldn’t have been left with any doubt on Saturday about what needed to be done.

And there’s something else that doesn’t add up here. The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta claims that it gave local health authorities two options: either put the child on the rabies preventative shots, or test the bears to rule out rabies. Only one was necessary. So if the health department believed the child was going to get the shots or was already receiving them, putting the bears down wouldn’t have been necessary at all.

I called the local health department myself and asked them about possible rabies exposure. They tell me that the average incubation period is between three to eight weeks. There have been cases in which the incubation period has been as short as nine days. The location of the bite, in terms of how far it is from the brain, is a factor. The severity of the bite is a factor. The amount of virus to which the person is exposed is a factor. And the age and size of the victim is also a factor.

In a case like this, a four year old could potentially complete the full incubation period faster than an adult.

So let’s take the facts that have now been established and put them together. The boy was bitten on Saturday, which is “Day Zero.” Tuesday, “Day Three,” is the first day that the mother was able to get in touch with the health department. According to what she says, no one explained the procedure in dealing with rabies exposure to her until Wednesday, “Day Four,” by which time her son should have already received the first two shots. She called around lunch time on Thursday, “Day Five,” to let the health department know that she would agree to the shots, and by then, the meeting had taken place and the bears were already put down.

There’s a major breakdown in communication somewhere. It’s inconceivable to me that Wednesday would have been the first time anyone would have taken the time to explain what is involved in the rabies preventative treatment. It’s also inconceivable to me that at that point, she was even given the chance to think it over and let them know the following day.

At that point, what was there to think over? If she, by her own words, was willing to let her son undergo the shot regimen, why wasn’t that clear on Wednesday? Why wasn’t it clear on Tuesday? Why wasn’t it clear on the same Saturday that the bite occurred?

On Friday, test results came back negative for rabies, and Richmond Mayor Doug Wilder called for an investigation into how the incident was handled and whether negligence charges should be filed against the parent, whose attorney adds:

“Everyone has to live with it and accept it and not point fingers. If this is negligence on her part, then 80 percent of mothers and fathers in Richmond better take notice.”

Funny, but I always thought that pointing fingers is at least part of a lawyer’s job! I do believe that this was an accident. I think that this is one of those situations where a child didn’t realize how dangerous a situation he was in, and a parent who didn’t realize that her child had momentarily slipped away.

But what if a zookeeper had looked away for “a few seconds” and allowed a bear to slip out of its habitat, and the bear reached a child. Does anyone honestly believe no lawyers would be leaping through fire for the chance to point fingers in court? Can you picture any attorney just shaking his head and saying, “We just must live with it and accept it.”

As for the 80% figure her lawyer quoted, I hope 100% of parents take notice. If it only takes “a couple of seconds” for a child to scale one fence, battle through shrubbery to reach a chain link fence and stick his hand through to pet a bear, what else could a child do — like run out into a busy street without looking both ways, for example — in “a couple of seconds” while a parent isn’t watching?

The sad fact of life is that at times, we all lose sight of what we’re doing, we’re not careful every second. We’re not perfect. But look at the price that has to be paid for that imperfection, and look at how much is at risk when we sit back and say, “these things happen.”

I feel sorry for the child because in trying to pet a bear at an age that left him too young to really understand the danger, he unknowingly and unintentionally caused their deaths. What’s worse, he had to find out that they were dead because of that act.

When you consider the sadness and guilt he has to live with — even though he certainly didn’t intend to cause any harm at all — it somehow seems a little insincere to shrug your shoulders and say, “Oh, well, these things happen.”

I don’t think for a moment that either the parent or the child intended to cause this outcome. I’m sure there was no intention for the child to get bitten to start with. As others have pointed out, given the strength, size and unpredictability of bears, the fact that he only came away with a small puncture wound means that he was extraordinarily fortunate.

It could have been much worse for the child; it couldn’t have been any worse for the bears. And it was all because of an accident that could have been prevented.

As for the bears, they were first buried at an area landfill. That decision, which added salt to many people’s wounds in this situation, was made before the rabies test results were received. They have since been exhumed, and cremated, thanks to the donated services of a local pet crematory, and they will be interred at Maymont Park following a special memorial service this Saturday.