California teacher dies of rabies after being bitten by bat inside classroom [View all]

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https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/california-teacher-bat-bite-death-19949458.php

The woman died late last week, about a month after being bitten by a “presumably rabid bat,” the California Department of Public Health announced in a news release Wednesday. She was later identified by KFSN-TV as 60-year-old Leah Seneng, an art teacher at Bryant Middle School in southern Merced County. Seneng noticed the bat in her classroom sometime in mid-October, her close friend Laura Splotch told KFSN.

“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 the outlet. “She didn’t wanna harm it. But that’s when, I guess it woke up or saw the light or whatever, it swooped around a bit and it took off.”

Despite not showing any signs of rabies in the days following the encounter, Seneng fell ill about a month later. Her daughter took her to the hospital, where she was put into a medically induced coma. She died four days later on Nov. 22. Evidence of rabies was found in samples collected at the Fresno County hospital where Seneng died, according to CDPH. The department noted that bats are the most common source of human rabies in the United States.

“Bites from bats can be incredibly small and difficult to see or to detect,” CDPH Director Dr. Tomás Aragón said in the news release.