Posted on 11/29/2024 9:19:07 AM PST by BenLurkin
The death of Leah Seneng, 60, last week was confirmed to be from the horrific disease by Fresno County health officials, according to the report.
Seneng had tried to save a bat she found lying in her classroom at Bryant Middle School in Dos Palos in mid-October, her dear friend Laura Splotch told the TV news outlet.
“I don’t know if she thought it was dead or what cause it was laying around her classroom and she was trying to scoop it up and take it outside,” Splotch told ABC30.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Bats are nocturnal. If they show up during the day, it’s a bad sign. There’s a good chance such bats have rabies unless there is another explanation.
I had a close family member whom I discovered had handled a baby bat that a friend had rescued from a fallen tree. The baby bat’s mother was killed, and the property owner decided to make a pet of the baby.
I learned this from a social media post and immediately called her. Turned out she and her husband had both handled it. She had been scratched or bitten to the point of drawing blood.
I made her go to the emergency room as soon as possible. I called several agencies first to explore options and to educate myself.
She got a rabies shot under the best medical advice. And she got a shot in her hand that was to prevent possible nerve damage.
Her husband refused treatment and has been fortunate not to contract the disease.
Here are the most important things I learned:
1. If you can test the animal that bites for rabies and the test is negative, you don’t have to get a rabies shot. However, in this case, the only test for a bat is to test its brain (because bats can live with rabies indefinitely I think). This means the bat has to die. The owner in this case foolishly refused to allow this. (We could have forced it by reporting to authorities but decided against this.)
2. Once symptoms of rabies occur in humans, they will almost always die from rabies. The window from exposure to preventative treatment is short. Perhaps 48 hours. The sooner the better.
3. Rabies symptoms can appear much later after being exposed. But waiting for symptoms before taking action is useless.
bttt
Bats and raccoons are the number one and two species acting as reservoirs of the rabies virus. The disease itself is a particularly nasty viral encephalitis, moving up nerve cells from the site of infection to the promised land in the brain. At that point the shots don’t help much.
That was her biggest mistake. Should have gone straight to the hospital and demanded treatment.
Last year or so, a man in Chicago(?) was bitten and simply refused treatment when it was offered or encouraged. Same sad end.
When my dad was a teenager in Serbia in the late 1920s or 1930s, a pig bitten by a dog ran wild through their (dirt floor) house, not sure if rabies were suspected in the dog, but because of the close contact he had to go through the stomach injections. Besides being painful, one of his friends jokingly punched him in the stomach. He wanted to kill that kid. In his 80s he was bitten by a raccoon and again went through the series, the modern one, of course. His older brother died of tetanus, and a sister died from a foot infection from corn stubble. He hated seeing us kids walking barefoot. Another brother and BIL were killed when the Nazis allied with the Croats, and dozens of men in their village were ‘disappeared’. My respect for this man grows every day, especially if I compare my activity level with his at the same age. Sorry to hijack, but I can’t wait to see him again!
I don’t understand why she did not go the ER right away. Bats are know to carry rabies.
Yup, UK and Australia have very strict rules on animals coming into country, especially UK since rabies not an issue there.
Any bat lying on the floor is sick and dying.
It needs to be dealt with by professionals.
NEVER with your hands.
And she didn’t deal with the bite or have the animal tested.
The gene pool just got cleansed and the collective IQ of that school just shot up.
It's been more important for the Girl and Boy Scouts to be gay or else driven out of the community than for children to learn about nature and survival. If gay can't thrive, ain't nobody stay alive!
My granddaughter picked up a dead bat in her preschool playground. She thought it was a Halloween decoration. She brought it to her teacher who immediately called authorities. It was rabid and she had to undergo the shots. She was only 4 and didn’t find them bad a all.
According to the article, the doctors put her into a coma. Putting the patient into a coma and allowing the body’s immune system to fight off the disease is just about the only way there is to cure full-blown rabies.
After the first 3 words you know it is a potential for the Darwin Award.
My grandma got rabies around 1910, she lived in Klamath Falls area, they took her to SF area for shots by horse and buggy. It was a close call, and the shots were HORRIBLE she said.
In before the ‘batshit crazy’ comment... (I hope)
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