Raccoon Causes Team To Miss Out On Tournament

I had to read this story three times just to understand it. What happened was a high school wrestling team was heading to its fourth consecutive regional championship when they stopped and picked up a dead raccoon that was in the middle of the road. They stored it in the storage compartment on the bus and when they arrived and opened up said compartment the dead raccoon turned out to be alive and ran away. School officials became alarmed that the students might have been exposed to something from the animal so they pulled them from the tournament for the health of others.

What I don't understand is why they would stop to pick up a dead raccoon in the middle of the road and couldn't they tell it was still alive by it breathing? It doesn't make any sense to me. My parents taught me never to play with dead animals so, I didn't. But, that doesn't mean I didn't poke them with a stick. The moral from this story is leave dead animals alone, don't put them in your vehicle.