Swedish infant scarred in violent ferret attack

“Her eyes, mouth and nose have escaped injury. She is lively and is playing and laughing as normal,” Selma’s mother Monika Johannesson told the local Barometern daily after the family returned home on Monday.

Selma was attacked while sleeping in her pram on the deck of the family home last Thursday.

The girl sustained more than 70 scratches to her face from the ferret and required a number of stitches. She has also been put on a course of antibiotics to prevent infection.

It has later been established that the ferret was tame and had been kept as a pet but had escaped from its owner in January.

Selma’s father, who was inside the house at the time, rushed to his daughter’s aid when he heard her screaming while under attack by the animal.

“It was probably scared when I came running through the door and as luck would have it the ferret did not managed to damage her eyes,” Patric Engqvist told the local Barometern daily.

The ferret however remained lurking near the corner of the house, until Engqvist found it and killed it with a spade.

“It is never fun to kill an animal but then it just felt like a relief,” he said.

Doctors have told the family that Selma will sustain some scarring after the attack but that the scars will fade with time. They have also requested that the animal undergo a post-mortem to rule out the possibility of disease.