A brain-damaged woman who can’t move or feel pain was savaged by a rat trying to ‘gnaw’ her to the bone as she slept.

There was blood everywhere when Diana Kirk, 76, was found by her husband John, 85, at their home in Bingham, Nottinghamshire.

She had scratches on her face, neck and hands and was rushed to hospital, where she stayed for four days.

Mrs Kirk sleeps downstairs in a special bed and is cared for by Mr Kirk who sleeps upstairs.

He heard a large rat ‘scratching around’ by his feet on May 8, but he could not see it well in the dark.

Then, at around 1.30am, he noticed it again, before he fell asleep and woke up as normal just before 6am.

When he went downstairs and checked on his wife, he then saw what the rat had done and immediately called for the ambulance, which arrived two hours later.

He said: ‘I’ve never seen anything like the injuries she had. You can see how bad they were from the pictures.

‘It was absolutely savage. I went and knocked on the door of the young girl over the road as she is also always up early and she helped.

‘They took Diana to the Queen’s Medical Centre and she came back on Thursday night.

‘There were scratches on her face, her neck, her hands. It had tried to gnaw right through to the bone from the looks of it. There was blood everywhere.’

A neighbour set up a trap in the house and the rat was eventually caught in a cage.

As he moved it to the patio, Mr Kirk said the rat tried to bite him multiple times.

He said a neighbour then killed it by shooting it four times with a pellet gun.

‘Because of her condition, my wife can’t move,’ Mr Kirk said.

‘I have since read that rats only ever go for young babies and people who are immobile in bed like my wife.

‘She can’t feel pain so she would not have known much about what happened.

‘I would like people to know what can happen and to be aware of it. I found out a couple of days after it happened that it was making a nest in the house.’

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