The incident happened at about 8am on February 27, after the baby’s parents had left for work and while she was being looked after by her maternal grandmother, surnamed Jiang.

As usual, Jiang went to the kitchen to make breakfast for Nini, when suddenly she heard the baby cry out.

Nini, who had just learnt to walk, was standing at her pet rabbit’s cage and must have poked her finger inside and been bitten by the creature.

A shocked Jiang looked on in disbelief as Nini’s finger bled profusely and the child continued to cry loudly.

Jiang quickly contacted Nini’s parents and told them what had happened.

The baby was then taken to the nearest hospital, where a doctor suggested they transfer her to the Fu Yang People’s Hospital.

“The best rescue time is less than eight hours, so the sooner surgery is carried out, the better the recovery result,” a doctor told the family.

The traffic was agonisingly slow, so an anxious Jiang reported the emergency to the local traffic police who escorted the family to the hospital.

The journey usually takes 4o minutes, but it took just 18 minutes.

“It’s thanks to the traffic police that Nini got medical treatment in time,” Jiang said.

The family told the doctor that they were in too much of a panic to look for the missing section of the finger. That meant the doctor could not perform surgery to reattach it.

The doctor said any body part that has become detached, for whatever reason, should always be kept for surgery.

Zhang Tianhai, an animal keeper at a local zoo, explained that a rabbit has sharp teeth that can definitely hurt children.

At the time of writing, the story had attracted 20,000 comments on Douyin.