The nightmare began with a dream—or so she thought.
Dr Krista Edelman, a gastroenterologist based in Richmond, Virginia, was jolted awake in the dead of night to discover she had been sharing more than just her bed with her husband. Something was lodged deep inside her mouth. Something alive. Something with wings.
“I was dreaming that a little mouse was trying to get into my mouth,” Dr Edelman told WWBT. “In my dream I was reaching up to my mouth, and when I did, I grabbed something—ultimately I had folded the bat’s wings.”
The moment of realisation transforms a hazy nightmare into waking horror. A bat—very much real, very much alive—had somehow found its way into the physician’s mouth as she slept.
The couple acted fast. They captured the mammal and handed it over to animal control officers, who conducted rabies testing. The stakes could not have been higher. Rabies, once symptoms appear, is almost universally fatal.
A Race Against Time
Dr Edelman was not about to take chances with her life.
She underwent the full post-exposure prophylaxis protocol: initial preventive rabies vaccinations combined with immunoglobulin doses designed to neutralise the virus before it could establish itself in her nervous system.
The treatment regimen is gruelling. Multiple injections over weeks, each one carrying its own discomfort. But for a doctor who understands exactly how devastating rabies can be, there was no hesitation.
The waiting game that followed must have been excruciating.
When Good News Arrives
Animal control tests eventually confirmed what everyone hoped for: the bat was rabies-negative.
Dr Edelman received the all-clear, and her treatment was halted. No more injections. No more fear.
The incident serves as a stark reminder of how easily wildlife can intrude into human spaces—even the most intimate ones—without warning.
Why it Matters
Stories like this one reveal the fragile boundary between the wild and the domestic. Bats are the primary reservoir for rabies in the United States, and encounters like this one—while rare—carry potentially fatal consequences if not treated with absolute seriousness. For Dr Edelman, a medical professional who understood the risks intimately, swift action almost certainly saved her life. For the rest of us, her experience is a chilling illustration of why public health warnings about bat exposure should never be dismissed, why sleeping in sealed environments matters, and why any suspected contact with bats warrants immediate medical consultation—even if you don’t remember being bitten.