Before I go on to tell you all about my tale I've got to say that this was one of the worse experiences of my life.
So I'm chilling down the beach, sat back against the bottom face of the cliff, after a few hours beachcombing. I'm writing a letter and the tides coming in fast, probably have about 20mins before I'm cut off from the exit ramp. I'm not bothered because I like to leave it till the last few minutes that I can get away with, without getting soaked. Anyway I'm getting on with my letter and then I hear a very loud thump which gave me a little fright. I look up and directly opposite me there's a badger laid flat on its front. I feel confused and a bit weary like when your confronted by a big wild animal. I look up at the cliff top and its probably a 100ft drop. The badger is about 15ft away, isn't moving or making a sound. I feel so shocked that I don't move for at least a minute but when I do stand up and get closer I can see that its still breathing! I get down to its level and stroked its head a little, it flinched but after a few strokes I think it knew I didn't mean it harm. Next I think I looked up at the sea coming in and thought F*ck! I was the only one on the beach and there wasn't enough time for me to go get help. So I phoned 999 and told them what was going on and asked for help. The 999 operator said he will contact RSPCA for me because I didn't have any credit and he would keep me up dated. After pacing about for 10mins, still no phone call I got really worried because the tide was really close. I knew if this badger wasn't going to drown I would have to lift it up and carry it to safety. Problem was, the pore thing, all of its bones were probably broken and to make things worse I had a heavy backpack full of stones. I wasn't leaving anything behind. Backpack on, I got ready to lift the badger up, ideally I wanted to man handle it as little as possible so I settled on lifting it up from under its arm pits and keeping it close to me. It was very hard to do this gently because the badger must have weighted about 30kg. The whole time its been silent until now, it made some grunts. I didn't wait about and was off. Trying to move around rock pools didn't help out at all and I knew the badger didn't like it either. I must have been causing it a great deal of pain. 2mins into this and I lost my grip and the badger slipped a little so I to put it down to get the position right again, when I got going again it had a spasm which was awful. The biggest obstacle was when I got to the exit ramp a minute or so later. The ramp wasn't flush with the floor, it was a distance from it, about hip height, normally I would use my arms to steady myself and then climb up the steps. That's impossible with me carrying this badger. I cant really remember how I got it up but I know it wasn't pretty. The badger had had enough of me and started to die right at the end. It actually did a death breath and then didn't blink again. Sadness overcame me and I sat next to the badger devastated. A few minutes had past and I noticed 3 people were at the top of the ramp staring at me. I didn't want to seem like a total weirdo so I got up and walked up to them and tried to explain but I gave up, defeated and walked home. When I got home and was walking up the stairs to my flat my phone rang, it was RSPCA. I answered and lost my sh1t!
I bet a lot of people would have done something different. I'm not a first aider, didn't have a clue what to do. I did what I thought was right but I sometimes question whether it might have been better for the badger to drown. Like now it rains down heavy on me that I killed that badger.
