Ferret chews off seven fingers of sleeping 4-month-old baby

A 4-month-old baby boy lost seven fingers after being attacked by his family’s pet ferret. It’s an unnerving story, and as Grain Valley Police Chief Aaron Ambrose told the Star: “This is awful — a very, very unfortunate incident.”

I’ll resist the urge to rail against the parents because we still don’t know exactly how the ferret got so close to the infant. What we do know is that the boy’s parents reportedly heard him scream Monday around 2:30 a.m. They rushed into the room where he was sleeping and found him missing all but his thumbs and part of a pinkie finger.