Police officer dies after being bitten by a feral cat

West Texas A&M University Police Officer, Cpl Monty D Platt was bitten by a feral cat. Cpl Platt was responding to a call on the university campus.

Subsequently, and we do not have details about this, he was prescribed medication to prevent infections from the bite, the CBS Austin report states.

The medication prescribed caused serious illness. On Thursday, July 30 he was feeling very unwell and taken to an urgent care centre. He had suffered a severe reaction to the medication.

He was then taken to a burns unit at UMC in Lubbock according to the University Police Department (UPD) because the reaction was so severe that it had caused serious injury.

He was placed on a ventilator and treated for the “wounds”. He deteriorated. Last Tuesday his kidneys shutdown. His temperature had dropped and he passed away, I believe, on Tuesday evening.

UPD announced that there would be a memorial service for Cpl Platt at 10 AM on Friday, August 11, today. It will take place at St Anne’s Church at 605 38th Street in Canyon. There will be a graveside memorial at the Dreamland Cemetery Association at 26500 US 87.

The headline caught my eye. I have taken the headline from the CBS report. It implies that the feral cat’s bite had ultimately killed the officer but as we can see some sort of medication killed him. It may have been an unusual reaction. I’d like to know what the medication was. In fact, I think it is important that we know what the medication was.

What immediately comes to mind would be a rabies inoculation. My guess is that it would have been that to take preventative action but perhaps there may have been additional medication (see useful comments below). Of course, we don’t know whether the cat was truly feral or a domesticated campus cat. We have no idea how the bite was incurred. I’ll try and add some more detail later.

This is a sad story and my condolences go out to the family of the police officer.