Overview
- Chloe Kelly, 44, says a stray ginger cat bit her heel at the La Blanche Resort in Bodrum on the last day of her trip in September 2022.
- After returning to Exeter, she called 111 when her two dogs persistently sniffed the wound, and she went to the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital.
- Clinicians confirmed rabies and arranged urgent vaccine and treatment sourced in Northampton, which she says reached her roughly 26 hours after the bite.
- Kelly reports lasting nerve damage, loss of her job and tied housing, and the need to rehome one dog, and she is now trying to earn a living running a hair salon.
- NHS guidance notes rabies is rare in the UK and almost always fatal once symptoms appear, and Kelly says her case was the hospital’s first; the resort has been asked for comment.