Guests dining at an upscale Wisconsin restaurant had an unexpected visitor during their meal when a raccoon fell through the ceiling and bit a customer.
The pesky raccoon got loose inside the Grand Geneva Resort’s Ristorante Brissago in Lake Geneva, about 55 miles southwest of Milwaukee, around 7:30 p.m. on December 14, according to WDJT.
After the creature fell through the ceiling and landed in the dining room, a guest attempted to catch it and was bitten.
Walworth County Sheriff’s deputies were called to the restaurant and found the animal barricaded in a corner of a back dining room. Authorities put a trash can over the creature to contain it. Body camera footage showed the officers discussing using a Taser on the raccoon before deciding against it.
Matt Snorek, who owns Guaranteed Gone Wildlife Control, used a dog catch pole and cage to trap the raccoon.
“We don’t know how this raccoon got there,” Snorek told Fox 6 Now. “Phone rang, it was the resort in Lake Geneva. They said, ‘Hey, do you do wildlife control?’ I said ‘yes.’”
Snorek described the raccoon as being large and aggressive.
“It was quite a large raccoon. So he was on it for the 25 minutes I was on the way there as this thing was brawling, scratching, hissing,” Snorek said.
While the situation may seem bizarre, Snorek says calls involving wildlife entering buildings happen during Midwest winters.
“When it gets brutally cold like it was these last two days, it’s not uncommon to get these calls for raccoons going into a structure,” he said.
Since the raccoon bit someone, officials euthanized it and tested it for rabies. The Walworth County Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Public Health, told Fox 6 Now that the raccoon was negative for the disease.
