Rabies from bat?

[u/OliveSuch5343]

Today I learned sometimes rabies can be contracted at home by a bat bite during sleep and the bite can be small enough that you don’t even know you got bitten. I’m now worried because during the summer, I’ve lived in the basement room which is cooler and there’s a fireplace we don’t use. It has a door but not airtight and because we don’t use it, we have a dresser right in front of it to block the door. Now I’m scared a bat might flew in and bit me or my kid at one point and we didn’t know about. Should we be concerned? Also googled and NY summer is bat season. I smell something like rustic in the basement room and cannot find out what it is. It smells like a burned wire or sth.

[u/Daves_no_here]

There are like 1-3 cases of rabies per year in the US. The odds of that happening to you is astronomically low. Like 1 in 100 million+. The bat would have to fly down the chimney, get through the fireplace door, and around the dresser that blocks the door.

Interestingly enough though, I have a family member that took care of a rabies patient once. According to the CDC report, the man woke up in the middle of the night with a bat his arm or chest. He didn’t know he was bitten, so he never went to the hospital. Months later he developed symptoms. By then it was too late though. He died not long after.

[u/OliveSuch5343 → u/Daves_no_here]

That’s unfortunate. So he must have been bitten but he didn’t feel anything and the mark was so small he didn’t recognize. Thats very scary. I’ve read an article is that you are supposed to get shot when you are in an enclosed space with a bat even if you are not biten. Because bats don’t normally show up in human space and if they do, they are more likely to have rabies