Jurassic Park: Prologue: The Bite of the Raptor Summary & Analysis

Dr. Roberta Carter, newly transplanted from a high-stress residency in emergency medicine in Chicago to an idyllic fishing village in Costa Rica, stares at the torrential downpour outside the medical clinic. She’s getting tired of the unending rain. Suddenly, she hears the approach of a helicopter through the storm. The aircraft marked “InGen Construction” lands outside and disgorges two crewmen, an injured worker on a stretcher, and a man in a yellow raincoat named Ed Regis.

The injured worker—a kid no older than 18—looks like the victim of a wild animal mauling, although a clearly nervous Ed Regis tells Dr. Carter that a backhoe ran over and dragged him. Without dirt or contamination in the wounds, she doesn’t believe him—and her doubt increases when she spots defensive wounds on the worker’s hands and arms. The worker is in shock, and he whispers “Lo sa raptor” while she examines him. Her assistant refuses to help clean the foul-smelling wounds, worried that a “hupia”—a local bogeyman believed to hurt and steal small children—caused them. The worker suffers vomiting spells and seizures, and then he dies. The InGen crew collect his body.

Later, using her Spanish dictionary, Dr. Carter learns that “raptor” means “ravisher” or “abductor.” When local midwife Elena Morales comes in with a woman in labor, Dr. Carter tries to ask her about raptors and “hupias.” Elena doesn’t want to invite bad luck by talking about such topics, but she does tell Dr. Carter that raptors steal victims, they don’t maul them. Still later, in her English dictionary, Dr. Carter discovers another definition of the word raptor: a bird of prey.