Alert: Dizzy bats and the Prius "key"

Wow. That would have probably scared the crap out of me. But of course, it's still some what humorous.

That would make for an interesting experiment.

What if you set the fob in a clear space? Would a bat come at it? Does it have to be near the car and activating?

Be sure to tie the fob down so the little vermin doesn't take off with it.

 

I think it's coincidental that the bat struck your pocket, they use a type of sonar. The fob operates on radio frequencies.

On a more medical note. I think you should call your doctor about the incident to see if he feels you should get the rabies series. Recently recommendations have become much more strict for giving rabies shots to anyone with even potential contact with a bat (i.e. child wakes up in a room with a dead bat on the floor even with no sign of bite/scratch/exposure.)

It takes only a very minimal innoculation/exposure to a bat's saliva to cause a possible infection. I'm not telling you to go to your doctor and definately have the shots, but I think you should, immediately, call and discuss it with him. Realize that if you DO get rabies, you die (ok, 3 people in the history of the world have lived after aquiring a rabies infection, but who wants those odds?!)

Sorry, hope I'm not scareing you, but please talk to your doctor about it.

 

Ok, here's the deal. I know that last week we had a family in the ER that found a dead bat in the drain in their pool. They called poison control who recommended they come in for the series. We actually ran out of vaccine/toxoid in the hospital since it was so many people and so many doses needed at once.

What ensued amongst some of us ER docs was a discussion of whether it was REALLY necessary to treat that group/family. One would expect (though I can't prove) that the clorine would neutralize/destroy the rabies virus. Also, that large of a volume of water should dramatically dilute it as well. We all 'guessed' that it probably wasn't really necessary to treat. But we also felt that it was darn risky not to treat without more solid evidence to support our speculation about the clorine and dilution. Remember that there are quite a number of Gastrointestinal viruses that survive quite well in swimming pools and cause epidemics of gastroenteritis.

So, I'm going to take the easy road and tell you to discuss it with your MD and decide your own comfort level with the issue. I, personally, suspect that most city/public pools have bats that drink from them all the time. I have NEVER heard of a single report of a case of rabies acquired from exposure to swimming pool water contaminated by a bat's saliva. But I certainly can't tell you that the risk is zero.

How's that for a hedge! I'm honestly not sure what I would do or tell you if you came into my ER.