BELLEVILLE, Ill. -- The family of an 11-year-old boy bitten by a black bear named Tommy Wednesday dropped a suit seeking to have the bear killed and tested for rabies.
Thomas Keefe Jr., the attorney for the Scott Burrelsman family, said his clients decided to drop the suit because of the emotional stress on the boy caused by court efforts to save the bear's life.
Tommy, a 17-year-old bear, has been a favorite at Camp Ondessonk, a Catholic youth camp northeast of Vienna, for 16 years. The bear bit the boy July 7 when he tried to pet Tommy while he was being fed.
Keefe said Burrelsman's parents decided efforts to save the bear's life through court hearings had gone on so long, the boy would have received the rabies shots before the issued was decided.
'He was made out to be a bear-hater,' Keefe said of the boy.
The boy has had three shots and has experienced a reaction to the injections, Keefe said. The boy will have to undergo three more shots.
Associate Circuit Judge Thomas Daley had set another hearing for later today to reconsider an order directing Tommy be destroyed and tested for rabies until the suit was dropped.
Doctors had advised the boy to get the shots even though they concede it is unlikely the bear is rabid.
Dessie Reeder, whose husband Royce is the ranger and Tommy's keeper at the children's camp, said Tommy has not been paying any attention to the furor to save his life.
'He's the same ol' Tommy,' she said. 'He's oblivious to all that's going on. He's bathing in his pool -- that's the only way he has to beat the heat other than getting under a shade tree.'
Scott began taking rabies vaccinations last Friday. Veterinarians say Tommy would be dead by now if he had rabies and he has shown no symptoms of the disease.
Tommy's life was spared by a temporary restraining order issued last Friday in Johnson County Circuit Court at Vienna, but a panel of three judges in 5th District Appellate Court at Mount Vernon ruled Monday the restraining order was void.
Johnson County State's Attorney J. Lewis Wingate then filed motions to stay the execution of Daley's order, to set aside the order and to move the case to Johnson County on a change of venue.
