Note, this was wild animals that had the rabies, not dogs or cats...

Janet

Fox Bites Woman Waxing Car

"I was waxing my car and all of the sudden he bit me. I'm trying to shake this fox off my butt and I call my son who 13 to come out to help," said Jeannie Kenney who was bit on the buttocks by the fox.

Kenney needed a series of rabies shots as a precaution. "The shots were worse than the bite," Kenny laughed as she related the story.

A man who was bitten on his foot did not require treatment because the bite did not break the skin.

There were seven fox sightings in one neighborhood on Sunday. One fox was seen on Brigham Street as six toddlers played nearby.

Cindy Dorchester said a fox startled her in her Franklin Street back yard. She threw a bag of fertilizer at it, scaring it away.

"He was 2 feet away and if I had not thrown that bag he would have gotten me," Dorchester said.

Animal control officials believe there is a fox den in the area and have set out traps.

"Normally they stay away from you. When they come after you, you have a problem," said animal control officer Bob Hammond, who believes the fox is rabid.

Officers shot at a fox as it ran into the woods Sunday night, but the fox ran off and they could not say if it was the same fox that attacked Kenney.

CHILLICOTHE, Ohio — A woman was recovering Monday after a brush with a potentially fatal disease.

Dawn McDaniel and her family live in a Civil War-era church which they've renovated into a home, but a little more than a week ago their house had an unwanted occupant.

In the middle of the night McDaniel said she felt a small bite, 10TV's Cara Connelly reported.

"It burned a little bit, just a little bit but it was teeny pinpoint," she said. "You could hardly see it."

She yelled out in surprise and her husband threw a blanket over the intruder.

"It turned out to be just a tiny little brown bat," McDaniel said. "It wasn't that big at all, just a small thing."

Bat bites are relatively uncommon, but health officials said some bites can be fatal if not treated, Connelly reported.

"It is a very frightening disease," said Lana Cherrington, director of Environmental Health in Ross County. "It still occurs here, especially in wild animals."

The McDaniel family did everything by the book, including keeping the bat that bit Dawn and taking it to the health department for testing, Connelly reported.

A few days later, the family found out that the bit did in fact have rabies.

"I had been exposed, was how they put it," McDaniel said. "They were very careful to say that, that I had been exposed."

She received eight shots as a precaution and will likely need more in the future. Health officials said she should make a full recovery.

Rabid bat sightings are fairly rare in Ohio.

According to the Ohio Department of Health, there have been 13 incidents where a rabid bat approached or bit a human so far this year, Connelly reported.

There have been an additional 11 cases involving pets.