Rabid bat bites girl in Spencer

SPENCER, Mass. (WHDH) -- A ten-year-old was bitten by a rabid bat last week and had to receive a series of painful rabies shots.

She says an adult told her it would be okay to hold the tiny creature.

Jojo Keefe, 10, says all the kids there were fascinated with a tiny bat found at a park in Spencer.

“Everyone’s like, ‘Oh my God, there’s a bat!’” Jojo Keefe said.

Jojo says a woman picked up the bat and started showing people. Spencer police say then the kids passed around and touched the wild animal.

But when it got to Jojo's hands, the little bat apparently had enough. It sunk its tiny teeth into her finger.

“I went like that to let it go, off my finger, and it scratched. The tooth scratched me, it scraped on my skin,” Jojo Keefe said.

The cut wasn't bad -- it barely bled -- but Jojo's mom knew it was still serious.

“My mom was screaming and going 'Oh my God,' and freaking out,” Jojo Keefe said.

Before going to the hospital, Maria Keefe wanted to find the critter to make sure it got tested for rabies.

“She took the lid and pushed the bat into it,” Jojo Keefe said.

Two days later, the Keefe family got a phone call.

“Somebody called back and said, ‘You need to rush her to the hospital,’” said Maria Keefe, Jojo’s mother.

The bat was rabid, and Jojo could be infected.

“I went to the hospital right away, and they gave me a shot in my arm,” Jojo Keefe said.

The three shots in the arm were more painful than the bat bite itself. And the talkative 10-year-old also learned a valuable lesson; you shouldn't believe everything you hear.

“All the other kids were saying it, ‘Oh it’s really sweet. It doesn’t have rabies, it won’t bite,’ Then it bit me, it had rabies and it wasn’t sweet. So it was kind of wrong,” Jojo Keefe said.