I could imagine situations where that could happen, like if they scratched your throat or something.
Yes.
Strictly speaking, deaths from cat bites aren’t from being mauled (blood loss, shock, etc) but from infection. I personally know someone who spent a week in hospital, and could well have died, because of a cat bite. She probably would have been if she hadn’t gone to the ER. She was on IV antibiotics for weeks.
Yes. cite
Well, yeah: if somebody died from an infected spider bite, I wouldn’t describe them as being mauled to death by a spider.
True, but the definition of mauling is fairly loose. And if the proximate cause of death is being bitten or scratched by a cat (as opposed to an arachnid) leading to lethal infection, then I would count cat scratch fever and lethal sepsis in humans from cat bites is well documented.
Cite: Nugent, Theodore Anthony.
It happened (literal mauling by house cat) once in an episode of The Avengers, but there was more than one cat, and they were trained to kill.
My sister once got mauled by a cat, and it seems likely that she would have bled to death were it not for first aid and medical attention.
Kirk was mauled by Cat Kirk on “The Gilmore Girls” but he lived.