“I was awakened by a smarting sensation on my forehead, and, but half awake, brushed my face with my hand, turned over, and dropped asleep again.” said Miss Mary Sullivan, a housekeeper at the Rossmore Hotel at Wabash and Nineteenth in 1895. She had been alone in her dark room, sleeping peacefully through the night, when the rat attacked.
“In a few seconds I was once more awakened by a painful sensation over my eye and felt something warm running over my face. I was dreadfully frightened and could not imagine what was the matter until a rat sprang on my face and bit me again. I threw the thing away, screamed, and then I fainted.”
Her screams attracted coworkers and guests, who rushed to her aid. Going into her room, they lit the gas lamp and saw her passed out on the bed, the pillows covered in blood and the same streaming down her face. The rat had bitten three large wounds on her head. She would survive, though retain the scars and likely a lifelong fear of rodents.
