14 DAY TRIAL // A seven-year-old girl from the Symonds Yat village in the Forest of Dean, England has been bitten by a large rat while sleeping.
Francesca Williams' parents heard the girl wake up and start screaming at around 2.30 a.m., the Telegraph informs. They initially thought she was having a bad dream, until noticing that the little girl had blood on her face and arm.
They realized that she had been bit and were told that the animal that attacked her was large and brown.
“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,” mother Wendy Williams describes.
They immediately sent their dog in, which found the foot-long (30-cm) rat under the girl's bed. The pooch killed the rodent and father Darren threw it out. Mrs. Williams explains that there have been no signs of the animal's presence in the house.
“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,” she says.
“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.
“You hear about rats carrying diseases and so we were worried that Francesca might have caught an infection. However, she’s been to the doctor’s and has been given some antibiotics and luckily everything is OK,” she adds,
While Francesca was not hurt, she was in shock after the incident and was unable to return to her bedroom for an entire week.
“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,” Williams notes.