Boy Dies of Rabies after Playing with Injured Bat His Dad had Saved

One dad has regretted saving an injured bat because it led to the death of his son.

What’s sad is that Ryker Roque, 6, was not immediately taken to the hospital because his parents did not think he was in serious trouble and that they were protecting him because he had a fear of injections.

Henry Roque, the boy’s dad, later recalled how he found the bat that would bring the family this deeply saddening situation.

(I) found a bat, put it in a little bucket, put it on the porch and I had asked my son, ‘don’t touch it under any circumstances’. So, apparently he put his hand in there and touched it and he said it only scratched him, so I frantically googled it real quick and it says to wash his hands with soap, hot water for five minutes,” dad Henry said.

Feeling confident that his googled first aid worked, they didn’t bring Ryker to the hospital like they should have done.

A week later, the boy would complain of feeling headaches and numbness in his hands. This time, dad Henry rushed him to the hospital but all the while thinking that the boy must have hit his head while playing.

While going through the child’s medical history to determine the cause of his symptoms, the medical staff were quite alarmed when Henry mentioned the bat.

I mean, alarms, bells, whistles went off. They went frantically looking for the other doctors to tell them that it was a bat and how severe it was. And then they all came in. We had a conference and they explained to me that it’s almost always lethal,” the shocked dad recalled.

Photo credit: GoFundMe

The family quickly set up a GoFundMe account to seek help for Ryker’s medical bills. Sadly, the boy died. Still, the donations continued to pour in for the child as many parents around the world felt the family’s pain and knew that what happened to him was not intentional and that his dad was surely quite devastated that he was partly to blame for the death even if he had not meant for it to happen.

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