A Richmond, Virginia, doctor says she woke up with a bat trying to burrow into her mouth, then captured the animal and started rabies shots before the bat tested negative.
Dr. Krista Edelman, a gastroenterologist, said the encounter happened about 6 a.m. on Aug. 20 in her nearly 100-year-old home, WWBT and WTVR reported. She told UPI she had been dreaming about a field mouse at her mouth. Still half-asleep, she reached up, felt something soft, hairy and cool, and folded what turned out to be the bat’s wings.
“This bat was legitimately trying to burrow between my lips into my mouth,” Edelman said in an Instagram video quoted by People and local stations. She screamed, woke her husband, and they trapped the bat so Richmond Animal Care and Control could test it.
Edelman went to Bon Secours St. Mary’s Hospital. Dr. Adam Landsee, assistant medical director of the emergency department, told UPI she did the right thing even if she did not think she had been bitten. “Bat teeth are very small and you don’t know if you’ve been bitten or not, and with rabies being essentially fatal, they need to be treated,” Landsee said. He said anyone who wakes up with a bat in a room should assume possible exposure.
USA Today reported the bat later tested negative for rabies and that Edelman and her husband still began preventive treatment. Edelman said she posted the video as a “bat PSA.” WTVR said Richmond Animal Control had recorded at least five rabies-positive bats in Richmond and Henrico this year.
Virginia’s public health veterinarian, Dr. Julia Murphy, told WRAL that bat submissions for testing are up and that people should try to trap the animal and call the local health department.
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