"I didn't think I could strangle it with my bare hands... With my thumb in its mouth, I just pushed its head down into the muck," she said.
"It was still struggling and clawing at my arms. It wouldn't let go of my thumb."
Borch held its head underwater until it drowned.
She said the raccoon's arms fell to the side but its chest was still heaving slowly when she was able to pull her thumb out of its mouth.
Borch said she was hyperventilating as she ran home, but remembers looking back to see if the raccoon had started chasing her again.
"If there hadn't been water on the ground, I don't know what I would have done. It really was just dumb luck. I've never killed an animal with my bare hands. I'm a vegetarian. It was self-defense," she said.
The young woman is now receiving rabies exposure treatment at the hospital.
She has already had six shots so far, including the rabies vaccine, and is set to have her final injection this weekend.