Woman who was first to cure rabies without vaccine celebrates 20th birthday

FOND du LAC, Wis. (WMTV/Gray News) – A Wisconsin woman who survived a terrible brush with death is celebrating a milestone this year.

Twenty years ago, Jeanna Giese became the first person in the world to survive rabies without receiving the vaccine that would have saved her life.

“It’s almost surreal to think about, you know, 20 years old,” she said. “My life completely changed when I got sick.”

In 2004, Giese was 15 years old and living in Fond du Lac.

One Sunday morning, she was going to church with her mother when a bat was seen flying around during the service.

“He flew toward the back of the church and one of the ushers ran him over,” Giese said.

Being an animal lover, Giese asked her mother if she could pick up the bat and take it outside. His mother gave him the green light.

As she was about to place the bat in a tree, she said it bit her and changed her life forever.

“He managed to stretch out and bite my finger and it hurt,” she said. “I always get asked, ‘Does it hurt?’ Did you feel it? Yeah, I felt it. It hurt a lot.

Giese said she removed the bat’s fang from her left index finger.

The mark left by the bite was almost microscopic. She said she was not bleeding at the time because there was no open wound.

Giese and his mother cleaned the bitten finger with hydrogen peroxide and continued with their lives.

About three weeks later, Giese began feeling extremely lethargic and nauseous.

“I woke up and I couldn’t get out of bed, my face was red, I could barely move,” she said.

Giese’s parents took her to St. Agnes Hospital in Fond du Lac.

Once there, doctors tested her for meningitis and Lyme disease, among other illnesses. All tests came back negative.

Doctors didn’t understand why Giese was so ill. As Giese’s condition continued to worsen, the decision was made to transfer her to Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin in Wauwatosa.

Dr. Rodney Willoughby, a pediatrician who specializes in infectious diseases, said he was brand new to Children’s Hospital when Giese became his patient.

“This was actually the second time I was on duty here. I didn’t know anyone,” he said.

Dr. Willoughby sent Giese’s samples to the Centers for Disease Control in Georgia, where the diagnosis was confirmed. Giese was furious.

“Well, I thought she was going to die,” Willoughby said. “That’s what they all did. At the time, my knowledge about rabies was such that there wasn’t much I could do. It really is 100% fatal.

Willoughby said it was then too late to administer the life-saving rabies vaccine.

“The classic, conventional rabies vaccine has never failed since its introduction in the United States in the 1970s,” he said. “It’s probably our most effective and efficient vaccine, although fortunately we don’t need to use it often.”

At this point, doctors find themselves at a crossroads. Giese said doctors told her parents she would die in the hospital or they could take her home to die.

However, Willoughby wasn’t ready to give up just yet. He decided to try something experimental.

“Any time you improvise, the odds are against you, so you always worry,” he said.

Willoughby decided to put Giese in a medically induced coma, a decision never before attempted with a rabies patient.

“He kind of came up with the idea of ​​putting me in a coma to separate my brain and body and let my own immune system fight the virus,” Giese said.

Willoughby said he came up with the idea because rabies typically kills patients by causing overstimulation of the brain and heart, eventually stopping it.

“So the idea that we could just remove the brain so that it couldn’t work as hard and so that it wouldn’t stop the body from living, that seemed like a reasonable idea and seemed almost too obvious,” Willoughby said.

For the next 14 days, Giese remained in a coma.

“They didn’t know if I was waking up, if I was going to be myself or a vegetable or whatever,” she said.

However, Giese slowly began to wake up.

“He (Willoughby) said, ‘Look at your mom,’ and I moved my eyes and that’s when they were like, ‘She’s in there,'” Giese said.

Giese finally started moving his arms and tried to speak.

“I was a newborn at the age of 15. I couldn’t do anything,” she said.

But Willoughby said progress has been made.

“We didn’t know how she was going to cope. We had no idea of ​​the complications,” he said.

Over the next weeks and months, Giese slowly began to regain control of his life. She learned to walk again and underwent intense physical, occupational and speech therapy.

“The road to recovery was very long and painful. I do not give up. I guess it’s personal stubbornness,” Giese said.

Giese is now known throughout the world as a medical marvel. She is the first person on record to survive rabies without being vaccinated.

She was widely covered by local media, including when she graduated from high school and became a mother.

Giese is now the mother of three children and works at the Fond du Lac Children’s Museum.

“I always wanted to be a mom and now I am and it’s just fantastic. I love my children so much,” she said.

According to Willoughby, there are only 45 known rabies survivors. He said 18 of those survivors beat the virus through what is now called the “Milwaukee Protocol.”

“She did everything you wanted for any of your patients, so she’s just a total delight,” Willoughby said.

Years later, Giese is still an animal lover, even extending her compassion to bats.

“A lot of people are surprised that I actually like bats,” Giese said.

Cases of rabies in the United States are quite rare.

According to the CDC, this could be due to “the success of vaccination and animal control programs as well as public health surveillance and testing.”

For more information about rabies, visit the CDC website.

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