Sleeping girl, aged seven, bitten on the face by a foot-long rat
A terrified mum has spoken of her horror after her seven-year-old daughter was attacked in her bed by a foot-long rat.
Francesca Williams was bitten on her face and arm by a wild rat which had crawled into her bed while she slept at her home in Symonds Yat, Herefordshire.
Francesca's parents Wendy and Darren woke to hear their daughter's cries at around 2.30am.
Thinking the schoolgirl had had a bad dream they went in to check she was okay and were shocked to find her face and arm covered in blood.
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Mum Wendy, 35, said: "She was crying and said a big brown animal had bitten her.
"She said she woke up after feeling something crawling on her leg and when she moved it bit her.
"We could see from the blood on her face and arm that something had happened so my husband Darren went to get our dog Hattie to see if he could find anything.
"The dog immediately sniffed the rat out, it was hiding underneath Francesca's bed. Hattie killed it and Darren threw it outside."
Wendy said Francesca was left traumatised by the incident and has only just plucked up the courage to sleep in her own room again, following the incident on Thursday.
She said while they lived in a rural area they rarely saw any rats and were puzzled at how the rat had managed to get in.
"There have been no droppings, nests or signs of any rats in our home so we can only assume it got in that day, through the cat flap perhaps.
"You just never think a rat would come into your home, let alone bite your child, it's unbelievable.
"I thought she was having a bad dream or couldn't find her teddy, never in a million years did I think Francesca would have been bitten by a rat.
"You hear about rats carrying diseases and so we worried Francesca may have caught an infection but she's been to the doctors and has been given some antibiotics and luckily everything is okay.
"It could have been so much worse, what if it had bitten her near her eye or if the rat had bitten a baby, it's frightening."
6 Comments
by TheMoanerLisa
Friday, March 08 2013, 9:11PM
“Best part of this story is the dog who found it and promptly killed it. job done. The thought of a rat in your childs bed is horrific, but when it bites then thats bad news. Also find it odd that other posters take it upon themselves to analyse and then question a rats behaviour and query when and where it would decide to bite. if it concerns you that much look it up instead of using a news forum to raise any concerns.”
by thehermitage
Friday, March 08 2013, 3:38PM
“ees not a rat.. ees a Siberian Hamster....”
by spindles12
Friday, March 08 2013, 2:51PM
“""She said she woke up after feeling something crawling on her leg and when she moved it bit her"
What I can't understand is why the rat didn't bite her on the leg when she moved rather than running up to her arm and biting it and then on up to her face and biting that. I would have thought that a frightened rat would perhaps have bitten once - on the leg - and then made a quick getaway.
A National newspaper shows photographs of the wounds on her face and on the back of her arm. I don't know what a rat bite looks like but I have read that there would be two small puncture holes but the picture shows one single hole, in fact, as the girl has several spots or moles on her face, it looks almost as if she's scratched the top off one - not that I'm saying that's what happened. It just seems very puzzling that any creature would go from the place of discovery to another place and bite then move up to another place and bite, that's all I'm saying.”
by Studley1975
Friday, March 08 2013, 2:27PM
“Hattie The Rattie! :0)
Shame There Was No Pic Of The Hero Dog!”
by Spratley
Friday, March 08 2013, 10:58AM
“The dog killed it *and* threw it out!!?
Clever pooch.”
by rtruth
Friday, March 08 2013, 9:44AM
“ummmm, this was in the national newspapers yesterday, in much greater detail. Come on!”