U.S. doctor woke up with a bat in her mouth: post about the incident gets 45,000 reposts

Richmond, Virginia, gastroenterologist Krista Edelman woke up at around 6:00 a.m. on August 20 to find a bat in her mouth. Her account on Instagram received more than 45,000 reposts, and doctors reminded the public that any contact with a bat is a reason to seek medical help because of the risk of rabies.

According to Edelman, she dreamed that a field mouse was crawling into her mouth. In the dream, the woman reached toward her face and felt something soft — only to realize that she had folded the wings of a real bat. Her scream woke her husband: he put on winter mittens and caught the animal with a net, placing it in a bucket so it could be submitted for testing.

The doctor did not feel a bite and found no marks on her skin, so she initially just rinsed her mouth and went to work. She went to the hospital in the evening after speaking with an infectious disease specialist: contact with the mucous membranes of the mouth is more dangerous than a bite on the arm or leg because the virus is closer to the brain. At St. Mary's Hospital's emergency department, she began post-exposure prophylaxis — four doses of vaccine plus immunoglobulin. After the second dose, testing showed that the captured bat did not have rabies, and the course was discontinued.

Adam Landsey, the emergency department's medical director, explained why medical workers do not wait for a visible bite: bats have very small teeth, a puncture may go unnoticed, and no wound may remain at all. Under CDC guidelines, a visible wound is not required to begin post-exposure prophylaxis: once symptoms appear, rabies is almost always fatal.

Julia Murphy, the state's public health veterinarian, listed the reasons to seek medical attention: a bite, direct contact when there is no certainty that no bite occurred, and waking up in a room with a bat, especially if a child was sleeping nearby.

At the same time, Murphy stressed that bats do not need to be exterminated: they are beneficial to the environment, and the proportion of infected animals is small. In Virginia, around 25 rabid animals are confirmed on average each year; in 2026, there have been 19 so far. Reports of encounters have increased compared with usual levels, but this is likely related to increased attention to the issue rather than the spread of the disease.