You never know what you'll find tucked in a corner of your garage: a shattered holiday bulb, an unstrung wooden tennis racket, a rabid bat …
A 15-year-old Costa Mesa boy was recently treated for exposure to rabies after his mother learned he'd touched a bat he'd found in their garage.
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The mother contacted the city's Animal Control Department on May 5 to report her son had found a live bat in their garage in the 2300 block of Vanguard Way and had moved Bat Boy's cousin into a box without touching it. But two days later, the mom rang up Animal Control again to say her son told her he had touched the bat.
Animal Control leaned on the Orange County Health Lab in Santa Ana to speed up testing on the captured bat. The bat tested positive for rabies.
Because of his exposure to the rabid bat, the boy received precautionary treatment, and his family was instructed on how to proceed to safeguard against any future problems, according to a Costa Mesa Police statement.
Hopefully, it's not too late to prevent this nightmarish future . . .
The city advises residents to make sure pets are current on rabies vaccinations. Anyone who needs more information is directed to contact Costa Mesa Animal Control Officer Art Beames at 714.754.5163.
Email: mc****@oc******.com. Twitter: @MatthewTCoker. Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.