11-Year-Old Michigan Boy Bit By Bat While He Was Asleep!

I’m going to be honest… I’ve never been quite the same after have a bat in my house. I still get freaked out at non “bat things”, for instance I freaked out when my cat shook his head because it was dark in my bedroom and his ears sounded like bat wings. I may have screamed and jumped up scaring the cat.

Enough about me and bats, this terrifies me!!

Last week in Grand Junction, Mich, 11-year-old Brian Cripps was just sleeping top bunk of his bunk-bed when he felt something scratch his side. He woke up and tried to brush it away, when he was bit. He pulled his finger out and sure enough, a bat was latched on.

Brian grabbed the bat and woke his 10-year-old brother Jaxon, in the bunk below, to help him with the bat. The boys called out to their dad who was in the kitchen getting ready for work. They then went to the hospital where Brian started immediate rabies treatment, just in case the bat turned out to be rabid.

Brian’s Mom told MLIVE

"The nurses were scared of the bat," Tracy Cripps said, but packed it for mailing into the lab to be tested.  Brian would need to have an immediate dose-- two shots in each arm-- of rabies immune globulin, they said, as a precaution to prevent the disease, which can be spread to humans through animal bites."

 

The did test the bat and confirmed that it did have rabies, so Jaxon also started treatment in case the bat had bit him too while he was asleep.

From MLive:

"The bite itself didn't look bad at all," Tracy Cripps said, "and if the bat had not still been attached to his finger, Brian might not know he had been bitten, they have such fine sharp teeth."

The good news according to the Health Department there’s usually only about 2 cases of human rabies, because of bats, per year.

Although 40,000 people usually go through the preventative treatment after rabies exposure. That number is WAY too high for me!! As I continue to freak out on black socks that sometime go under the dresser.

Source: MLive