The baby suffered more than 50 bite wounds to his head and face.(Representative pic)
A 6-month-old baby in the United States was nearly eaten alive by rats that bit him over 50 times while he slept in his crib last week, police said. According to USA Today, the incident took place in Indiana on September 13. Evansville Police Department officers responded to a home after the child’s father called and said his 6-month-old son appeared to have suffered serious bite wounds.
The boy’s parents, David and Angel Schonabaum, were arrested and charged with multiple counts of neglect and other criminal charges. The child’s aunt, Delania Thurman, who lived in the same home, was also arrested on the same charge, the outlet reported. The baby boy, on the other hand, has been released from the hospital and placed in foster care.
The couple lived at the home with their three children, including the baby, and another family member and her two children. According to the cops, when they reached the home, they found the 6-month-old covered in blood, suffering from more than 50 bite wounds to his head and face.
“All four of (the victim’s) fingers and thumb on his right hand were missing the flesh from the top of them, exposing fingertip bones,” police detective Jonathan Helm wrote in an arrest affidavit, as per USA Today. “The damage to (the victim’s) index and pinky fingers were the most severe, as they were missing the flesh halfway down each finger,” he added.
The baby boy was flown to a hospital in Indianapolis, where doctors gave him a blood transfusion after his temperature dropped to 93.5 degrees. Notably, as per Mayo Clinic, the average body temperature is 98.6 degrees. The boy’s vitals show that he was suffering from moderate hypothermia as well as hypoxemia.
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According to the New York Post, the little boy’s home was full of clutter, trash and rat feces, the police said. The boy’s father told investigators that they began having a rodent issue in march and that the Terminix exterminators were treating the house. However, the cops also revealed that the rat’s mauling of the baby was not the first time as the rodents snacked on other children in the home as well in early September.
Two kids in the house told their school teacher on September 1 that mice had bitten their toes while they were sleeping. Days later, when the Indiana Department of Child Services visited the home, their mother told officials that their house had a normal amount of rodents, and denied wounds to one child’s feet were caused by rats. The department then went over a safety plan with the family and scheduled a return to the home just one day after the baby was bitten by rats.
Now, all children in the home have since been removed from their parent’s care by the Department of Child Services. The baby boy’s father has been jailed without bond on Friday and his wife is being held on a $10,000 bond. The aunt, who has also been booked into the jail Thursday, is charged with two counts of neglect of a dependent and remained jailed Friday on $2,500 bond.