BAT ATTACK HORROR
Mother woken by screams in the night as her boy of two is bitten in his cot
A MOTHER has told how she was woken by her toddler’s screams after he was bitten by a bat as he slept.
Jodie Smith, 29, was horrified when she saw the creature come out from her twoyearold’s cot and crawl across the bedroom floor.
Kian Mallinson was taken to see the family GP and then sent to hospital for a precautionary rabies jab.
Miss Smith, a former carer from Hull, said she rushed to check on her son when he woke her up at 2am last Thursday.
‘He was standing at the end of his cot, crying and screaming,’ she told The Sun. ‘He’s not talking yet so he couldn’t tell me what was wrong.’ She thought he might have a
‘It started crawling across the floor’
tummy ache and took him into her room, only for him to scream again while pointing at the door.
Kian then spent the night in her bed but the next morning she saw three tiny marks on his arms and then went into his room.
She added: ‘As I made his bed I flicked the duvet up. The bat flicked out and started crawling across his bedroom floor.
‘I was terrified. I thought it was a tarantula at first. I’ve never screamed so loudly.’
Her partner Jack Mallinson, 30, joined her and prodded at the creature with a coathanger before realising it was a bat. They then picked it up, put it in a tub and deposited it outside.
Kian is due to have three more injections as part of the anti-rabies treatment.
Mother-of-two Miss Smith said: ‘We’ve got no idea how the bat ended up in his room. The window had been open earlier in the day so it’s possible it was in there when we put him to bed.
‘It’s also possible that it flew in through the bathroom window, which was open. We think it might have been ill or disorientated when it came in.’ She added: ‘We can’t believe it really happened.’
The bat was said to be a pipistrelle, which has a wingspan of up to nine inches and is the UK’s most common.
A spokesman for the Bats Conservation Trust said: ‘They don’t want to enter the living areas of people’s homes but it does happen by accident occasionally. This may be linked to young bats who are still learning to fly or who lose their way.
‘UK bat species only feed on insects although some eat spiders. UK bats do not bite people unless they are handled or trapped.’ Public Health England said up to 150 people a year are treated after coming into contact with bats. No rabies has been found in pipistrelles.