A senior woman was savaged and left bloodied by a rat while she slept, her husband has revealed.
Diana Kirk, 76, was rushed to hospital after waking up drenched in blood at her Nottinghamshire home on May 9.
The OAP was left with shocking injuries including bloody claw marks across her neck and chin and was discovered helpless in bed by her husband John, 85, at their home in Bingham.
The 76-year-old has brain damage and sleeps downstairs in a hospital bed and is looked after by John and a care team who come to the house to help out.
John remembers hearing something “scratching around” by his feet but couldn’t see it because it was dark and knew it was a big rodent but brushed it aside.
At around 1.30am, he noticed it again but fell back asleep and woke up as normal just before 6am.
John was shocked when he went downstairs to see Diana covered in blood, concluded that the rat had attacked her and called an ambulance, according to Nottinghamshire Live.
“I’ve never seen anything like the injuries…it was absolutely savage,” he said.
“I went and knocked on the door of the young girl over the road as she is also always up early and so she helped. They took Diana to the Queen’s Medical Centre and she came back on Thursday night.
“There were scratches on her face, her neck, her hands – it had tried to gnaw right through to the bone from the looks of it. There was blood everywhere.”
The next morning the feral rodent was caught in a trap laid by John’s neighbour.
When the 85-year-old moved it to the patio, it kept trying to bite him until a neighbour came and killed it with a pellet gun.
“Because of her condition, my wife can’t move,” John explained.
“I have since read that rats only ever go for young babies and people who are immobile in bed like my wife.
“She can’t feel pain so she would not have known much about what happened.
“I would like people to know what can happen and to be aware of it. I found out a couple of days after it happened that it was making a nest in the house.”
Helen Speed, a Care Manager at Home Instead East Notts and Melton Mowbray which provides care to the Kirks, said: “A few weeks ago another one of our care givers was in Bingham and heard some squealing – there was a rat inside a client’s dustbin.
“I think it must be an ongoing issue and one that I think people living nearby need to be aware of – especially if they are vulnerable.”
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