HOMETOWN CELEBRITIES
Real Trouper
Like a severe stroke victim, he was unable to see or swallow food. His recovery therapy was about conditioning leg muscles and his mind to deal with a new dark world. Ultimately, the world would learn of Trouper’s triumph over extreme health challenges. But it wasn’t a stroke that dropped Trouper. A couple of months old, the raccoon was alone and off to the side of a golf course. A man on the course in North Carolina beat Trouper with a club. A witness scooped up the limp raccoon and called Dot Lee, known then for nursing injured squirrels back to health. She had also been a special-education instructor for disabled school kids. The witness did not find the golfer.
In the ensuing seven years Trouper has become a visual reminder for our odd cruelty to one another, ambling about on his unsteady legs, blind and caroming off table legs, Lee still stroking his throat to work food down. Watching them together you loathe the golfer, but find joy in Trouper’s scrap, Lee’s absolute benevolence and the worldwide impact of their story.
If there’s a happy ending to this sad story, it’s that Lee uses Trouper’s brain injury as a life lesson. She takes him anywhere his handicap can be appreciated, to help us grasp wildlife’s true worth. This has been the objective since Trouper awoke with a yawn from a five-day coma in 2009, says Lee, only minutes from being euthanized. She accepts donations at most visits to cover her costs.
The pair’s message is so far-reaching that it was told in May on National Geographic’s Unlikely Animal Friends TV series. The segment was filmed in Southwest Florida. People magazine has also profiled the two, and a children’s book was written about the ordeal. Trouper: The True Adventures of a Blind Raccoon, by local author Kyle L. Miller, is a learning guide. “If society doesn’t learn to practice respect,” Lee says, “someone gets hurt.”
Brandon Phillips was so moved by Trouper’s story that he helped form the Wildlife Education Project, a Sanibel nonprofit further delivering Trouper’s message of tolerance, says Phillips, who met the pair at a public forum. “My heart went out to [her],” he says of Lee, “and the message she was delivering. Trouper is an ambassador for a cause that resonates across the country.” The fledgling wildlife organization has just fired up web and social media sites to share Trouper’s story, Phillips says, to provide children a new venue for learning.
On a sticky spring evening at The Sanibel School, Lee and Judy Louis enter a courtyard pushing a baby stroller shrouded in faux leopard netting. Louis had volunteered to assist Lee in transporting Trouper. Lee, who is 71, has lost vision in one eye and has diminished sight in the other. In the stroller is Trouper, a burly creature arriving for yet another public event. There is a circle of excited chatter as the trio heads for setup in Sylvia Zavala’s Spanish language classroom. Trouper’s visit is one of many presentations at this evening’s STEM―science, technology, engineering and math―event.
Because of his severe head injuries, Lee tells visitors, Trouper communicates some needs with a silent coughing gesture, a contented trilling that she compares to cat purring. “Very intelligent,” Lee says of raccoons with the pride of a doting parent. Louis supplies sidebar details away from Trouper’s circle. Trouper, meanwhile, motors about the room, seeking walls to guide his movements―only his hearing remains keen.
Trouper is blondish, a light red patch on his neck indicating bear DNA, Lee says.
She keeps him looking good by washing him with VO5 shampoo―good for split ends.
Though Lee has told and retold Trouper’s story, she is happy in telling it again and again, often doing so while holding his front paws and swinging him like a child or duck-walking him on his hind legs, both activities to strength and coordinate his muscles, perhaps the sensations adding joy to his diminished capacities. Trouper, she adds, loves water and was filmed in the NatGeo documentary swimming in the Gulf. The performer Jackie Evancho is a huge fan, Lee tells her audience.
It is a compelling 30 minutes observing the pair during their presentation. Most of the children wonder aloud why someone would hurt an animal. This is vital for kids, says Liam Holston, a Sanibel School seventh-grader who watched Trouper and Lee. “It’s sad,” he says, “and yet [Trouper] seems contented. It’s pretty amazing.”
Trouper scheduling and project details are at wildlifeeducationproject.org.
THE PAIR’S MESSAGE IS SO FAR-REACHING THAT IT WAS TOLD ON NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC’S UNLIKELY ANIMAL FRIENDS TV SERIES.