Calif. art teacher, 60, dies of rabies after getting bitten by bat in classroom: ‘She didn’t wanna harm it’

It was a rabid bat out of hell. A kindly California art teacher died of rabies after she was bitten by a bat that she was trying to rescue in her classroom, ABC30 first reported . The death of Leah Seneng, 60, last week was confirmed to be from the horrific disease by Fresno County health officials, according to the report.

Seneng had tried to save a bat she found lying in her classroom at Bryant Middle School in Dos Palos in mid-October, her dear friend Laura Splotch told the TV news outlet. “I don’t know if she thought it was dead or what cause it was laying around her classroom and she was trying to scoop it up and take it outside,” Splotch told ABC30. “She didn’t wanna harm it.



But that’s when, I guess it woke up or saw the light or whatever it swooped around a bit and it took off.” A month after the winged creature’s bite, Seneng fell ill, the report said. Seneng’s daughter took her to a hospital, where she died on Nov.

22 — four days after doctors put her into a coma, according to ABC30. Splotch organized a GoFundMe that has raised roughly $1,500 for Seneng’s funeral expenses, as of Thursday. Fresno County health officials didn’t return a request for comment.

Rabies is a fatal, but rare preventable viral disease that causes fewer than 10 deaths in the US every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Roughly 60,000 Americans receive post-exposure prophylaxis, which prevents the disease, after potential exposure to rabies. The high death rate of rabies in humans has prompted health officials to take drastic steps to prevent it, given it can be found in several common wild animals, especially bats and raccoons.

The beloved P’Nut the Squirrel — the internet-famous rodent controversially seized in an upstate New York — was marked for death as state officials who planned the raid wanted to test him for rabies, which requires euthanization and decapitation . Officials contended P’Nut, who apparently lived rabies-free as a pet for seven years, had bitten a wildlife agent. P’Nut’s rabies test came back negative.

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