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Infected: With her bandaged arm
By Chris Brooke
Best friends furever: Alice Hudson snuggles up her pet catMost cat owners accept they
will have to put up with the odd
scratch or two.
But six-year-old Alice Hudson
ended up needing surgery after she
was nipped by her pet tigger.
Alice was playing with her ‘best friend’
when she received the seemingly minor
injury, after they both tried to grab a
ball at the same time.
the cat ‘wasn’t being vicious’ but sim-
ply ‘bit her arm instead of the ball’,
Alice’s mother Chantelle said.
After hearing her daughter’s scream,
Mrs Hudson immediately washed the
five puncture wounds on her arm
and treated them with antiseptic
lotion. But despite her swift
action, Alice’s right arm became
infected and she was admitted
to Hull Royal Infirmary for surgery
to remove the infected tissue
under general anaesthetic.
Mrs Hudson, 30, initially thought
staff were overreacting, but her
daughter had in fact contracted
Pasteurella – a bacteria commonly
carried by cats and transmitted
through bites, scratches or licks. It
can cause serious soft tissue infec-
tions, which in turn can develop
into sepsis or meningitis.
Mrs Hudson, a carer from Drif-
field, East Yorkshire, has now spo-
ken out to urge others to have any
animal bites checked.
she said: ‘I remember thinking,
“all this because of a cat bite”.
When she was in the operating
theatre I was thinking about whatto do about tigger but I realised
that what happened was a genu-
ine accident. He’s not vicious, it
would have been totally different
if he’d attacked her. We’ve had
tigger since he was a kitten. [He]
and Alice are little best friends,
she is obsessed with him and they
won’t leave each other alone –
they’re always playing together.’
Alice was kept in hospital for
three days while she recoveredfrom the operation earlier this
month, and given antibiotics for
another two weeks. Her mother
said her arm has healed ‘really
well’ – as has her relationship with
her half-Bengal cat.
‘the first few days she didn’t
want to go near him,’ Mrs Hudson
recalled. ‘When Alice came home
from hospital tigger kept going
up to her with his head down, like
he knew she hadn’t been at homebecause of him. He wouldn’t leave
her alone and kept going up to her
and lying next to her.’
the schoolgirl’s frosty behaviour
soon thawed, however, and she
flatly refused the suggestion of
sending the cat to live with her
grandmother. ‘tigger is one of my
best friends,’ Alice said. ‘It’s nice
being home with him again.
‘My arm was sore in hospital, but
it’s all better now.’How a nip
from Tigger
lef t girl, six,
in hospital
... thanks to
cat bacteria
(^) Daily Mail, Friday, August 30, 2019