Featured Image Credit: Solarpix/Getty/Sol de Zuasnabar Brebbia
Topics: News, World News, Animals
Gerrard Kaonga
Topics: News, World News, Animals
A mother died suddenly while on her way to the hospital after being bitten by a pet hamster.
A 38-year-old woman collapsed and died after being bitten by one of her children’s hamsters.
The mother-of-two reportedly collapsed while outside a health center near her home in Spain while accompanied by her two children, a 17-year-old and an 11-year-old.
The woman has not been named in local media, but is believed to be a Colombian national who was living with her family on the east coast Spanish city of Villarreal, north of Valencia.
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The woman is thought to have been on her way to receive medical attention for the hamster bite when she fell around 10.30pm on October 11, according to local paper Mediterraneo.
Tragically, it's also reported that the woman was only a few feet from the front door of the medical center when she collapsed.
Staff then rushed out to attempt to resuscitate her, but were unable to save her life. Police cordoned of the zone before the woman’s body was taken away.
An autopsy is expected in hopes of offering greater clarity in what way the hamster bite, if at all, contributed to her death.
In Spain, autopsy results are rarely made public, but a local court is coordinating an ongoing investigation into her death.
In rare cases, diseases such as rabies and bacterial infections can pass from hamsters to humans through a bite. However, it is still unclear whether this is what occurred here.
A person having severe allergies to animals, such as rodents, is also rare, but has occurred in the past.
Way back in 2007, a man from the Evesham in the UK went into anaphylactic shock following a hamster bite, and had to be admitted to a hospital in Redditch, Worcestershire.
Paramedic Stuart Philip was quoted at the scene saying it was an unlucky incident, but the man was fortunate to have survived.
He said: “It was a highly unusual situation, We got the initial call to an allergic reaction but we didn't realize it was from a hamster until we got there.
“People react in different ways to different chemicals, It's hard to say why this man reacted in this way. It's just a case of a particular hamster and a particular man – it's very unlucky.”
West Midlands Ambulance Service had said at the time: "The man suffered a serious and severe reaction to the bite.
"If you have been identified as someone who can have severe reactions it is vital that you and your family know what to do.
"The man’s actions in administering drugs to himself may well have played an important part in his recovery."
Wendy Barry, then-secretary of the British Hamster Association, also said: "I have kept hamsters for 20 years and I’ve never heard of this scenario in this country.
"Someone’s immune system would have to be very, very compromised for there to be such drastic consequences.
"Hamsters don’t normally carry any diseases that would affect humans. In fact, there is more chance of a hamster catching something from a human."