A picture has been released of the rat which 'savagely' attacked a disabled pensioner as she slept.
Diana Kirk, 76, was found covered in blood and shaking by her horrified husband John Kirk, 85, at roughly 5.45am on May 9.
She had bite and scratch marks on her face and neck, with the rodent having also chewed at her eyelids, fingers and elbow as she lay sleeping downstairs at home in Bingham, Nottinghamshire.
Unbeknownst to the couple, the 9inch-long creature had been nesting in a sideboard of the house where John had kept bird seed stored, Wales Online reports.
The next morning the rat was caught in trap laid by a neighbour who shot it dead with a pellet gun.
Retired tank driver John, who has been married to Diana for 36 years, said: “Diana’s injuries were horrific. At first I thought Diana had been shot.
“There was blood everywhere. The rat had tried to eat her to get to her blood. There were bite marks on her cheek and her lips.
“Diana’s fingers and elbow were badly chewed as well.”
Diana, a retired John Lewis shop worker, suffers from a catalogue of health problems including dementia and Parkinson’s disease.
A fall down the stairs six years ago left her brain damaged and unable to feel pain.
John, a retired entrepreneur and grandfather-of-one, said: “The only saving grace is that Diana didn’t know too much about it. She can’t feel pain because of her brain damage.”
Because of her health problems, Diana sleeps downstairs in the couple’s semi-detached home.
John said he heard scratching sounds coming from the living room the night before Diana was attacked.
He said: “We had a rat in the house before Christmas which the council came and got rid of and I’d thought that was that. I’d put seeds and peanuts out for the birds in the garden and kept bags of bird food in the sideboard in the living room.
“The rat must have sneaked into the kitchen and set up a nest in the sideboard because the bags of food were all chewed through. The night Diana was attacked I’d gone to bed about 10.20pm and had heard scratching behind the TV but didn’t think too much about it.
“At about 1.30am in the morning I noticed something brush past my bed but fell back to sleep. When I came downstairs at 6am the next morning to make Diana a tea, that’s when I saw her covered in blood.
“It was like a scene from Rambo. Absolutely horrific. She was just shaking with her hands by her neck staring up at me.”
John called an ambulance and Diana was rushed to the Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham where she was cleaned up and given a powerful course of antibiotics.
John, who served in the 6th Tank Regiment and saw action in North Africa in the late 50s, added: “The rat had tried to gnaw right through to the bone.
“Diana had obviously been attacked in the night because the blood had congealed and had gone black," he said.
"I've read since that rats only ever go for babies and people who are immobile in bed like my wife. I think people need to know the risks about rats and be wary about putting food out for the birds because it obviously got attracted by the seeds and nuts and thought our house would make a good place for a nest."
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