{"id":117928,"date":"2025-08-04T10:16:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T10:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/117928\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T10:16:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T10:16:14","slug":"massachusetts-woman-hit-with-over-20k-medical-bill-after-a-wild-bat-flew-into-her-mouth-on-vacation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/117928\/","title":{"rendered":"Massachusetts woman hit with over $20K medical bill after a wild bat flew into her mouth on vacation"},"content":{"rendered":"

A woman on vacation whose employee-sponsored health plan had lapsed after recently being being laid off wound up with over $20,000 in medical bills after a bat flew into her mouth.<\/p>\n

Erica Kahn, 33, was visiting Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in Arizona last August when the horror encounter with the winged mammal took place.<\/p>\n

Erica Khan is now rabies-free, but still struggling to get out from under nearly $20,000 in medical bills after a horrific encounter with a wild bat. ekahn92\/Instagram<\/p>\n

The former biomedical engineer noticed a number of bats flying around while she was outside taking pictures of the night sky, but didn\u2019t think much of it.<\/p>\n

That is, until one got too close for comfort, winding up trapped between her camera and face.<\/p>\n

When she screamed in terror, an unknown part of the bat wound up in her mouth for a few seconds. <\/p>\n

Her father, a physician who had been traveling with her, said she should immediately start a course of rabies treatments, even though she wasn\u2019t sure if she had been bitten.<\/p>\n

She quickly went online to purchase a medical insurance plan before going to a hospital in Flagstaff to begin treatments \u2014 under the impression it would cover her two-week course of rabies shots, which she received at clinics in Arizona, Massachusetts and Colorado, KFF<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n

But her biggest shock of all came when the bill arrived, showing she owed $20,749 between the four facilities \u2014 for treatment including four doses of the rabies vaccines and three shots of immunoglobulin to increase antibodies against the virus, which is fatal if left untreated.<\/p>\n

Bats account for around 33% of the 4,000 animal rabies cases reported in the US each year. If left untreated, the rabies virus is fatal to humans. Ivan Kuzmin \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t realize the insurance plan she had purchased a day before starting treatment required a 30-day waiting period before coverage would kick in, an explanation-of-benefits letter she got in the mail grimly explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it must have been a mistake,\u201d she told the outlet. \u201cI guess I was naive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Khan had been traveling with her father, a physician, who urged her to seek out rabies treatments after a bat flew into her mouth while she was taking pictures at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in Arizona. GoFundMe<\/p>\n

After being laid off from her engineer position the previous month, she opted against keeping her insurance under COBRA for $650 a month, rolling the dice she would not wind up facing an unexpected medical emergency.<\/p>\n

Khan told the outlet she\u2019s since gotten a new job and once again has health insurance. She\u2019s negotiated some of the bills down a bit, but says she still owed more than $19,000 for her treatments \u2014 which she said she plans to continue appealing.<\/p>\n

Despite her horrifying encounter with wildlife \u2014 ripped from the stuff of nightmares \u2014 Khan said it hasn\u2019t put a damper on her love for the great outdoors.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know what bats taste like now. It\u2019s an earthy, sweet kind of flavor,\u201d she joked to the outlet. \u201cIt\u2019s actually a pretty funny story \u2014 if it weren\u2019t for the horrible medical bill that came with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Around 4,000 animal rabies cases are reported each year in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention \u2014 with less than 10 people dying of the virus per annum.<\/p>\n

More than 90% occur in animals like skunks, raccoons, foxes and bats. Bats account for the highest proportion of reported animal rabies cases, at 33%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A woman on vacation whose employee-sponsored health plan had lapsed after recently being being laid off wound up…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":117929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[15225,5643,24156,48396,3168,3649,159,67,132,68,1154,837],"class_list":{"0":"post-117928","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-animal-attacks","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-bats","11":"tag-freak-accidents","12":"tag-health-insurance","13":"tag-rabies","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-us-news","19":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114969981176450127","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}