What to do if you wake up with a bat in your bedroom
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Bats can bite. Photo: Michael Macor/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images
I really didn't want to get rabies shots, but five days after waking up with a bat in my bedroom, I rolled up my sleeve and dropped my drawers.
Why it matters: Rabies is almost 100% fatal once symptoms emerge, which can take weeks to months.
- It's been detected in at least 14 bats in Washington state this year, including three in King County.
- Bats are the state's only known rabies reservoir, and rabid bats have been found in almost every county, per the Department of Health.
What happened: I woke up to a bat that had come in through an unscreened bedroom window last week.
- Several readers told me I should be evaluated.
- Marcia Merryman, a veterinarian who studied public health, said she'd learned about cases of people who didn't realize they'd been bitten by bats and "at least one of those people died of rabies."
That got my attention.
Threat level: Bat bites can be nearly impossible to detect because their teeth are tiny and may leave no visible marks.
- "If you awake to find a bat in your room, assume you've been bitten," per the Mayo Clinic.
- I called the state's communicable disease hotline over the weekend and was encouraged to call my local public health department and doctor's office.
- Both urged me to go to an urgent care or emergency clinic.
State of play: On Monday, I went to a clinic near my home and got the first of four rabies shots in my arm and human rabies immune globulin in my glute.
- The shots weren't the painful ordeal I'd imagined, with 20 or more injections in the stomach, as rabies treatment once required.
- Aside from a slight headache, I felt fine.
Yes, but: If you can safely capture the bat, public health officials can test it for rabies. If it tests negative, you can avoid the shots.
- However, you're also supposed to avoid contact with a bat because that's how you could be exposed in the first place.
- King County recommends waiting until the bat lands, then using heavy gloves and a container to trap it.
The bottom line: If I'd known then what I know now, I would have tried to safely capture the bat instead of feeling relieved when it flew out the window.
- Once it was gone, there was no way to know whether it had bitten me — or whether it had rabies. So I got the shots.