Rabies

@Swrigh1234 As I've said I grew up in a country with both a prevalence of rabies and bats.
Bats are indigenous wildlife and rescue organisations there take great pains to treat injured ones.
They, unlike the OP and you, are not hysterical and ill informed. The irony of you calling me stupid is hilarious.

If it flew away it wouldn’t be tested for rabies

Right, but the family could have been tested for rabies if they are concerned.

Why on earth did your husband kill it? You could have shut the door and opened the window until it flew out, which it would probably have done that night.

I can't feel any sympathy for your anxiety when I hear about how you unnecessarily killed this little creature.

Really interesting article about the only known survivor of rabies. If you google her name you’ll get a lot more of the background. But to date she’s the only known survivor to be cured. This article is more of a follow up, but it does give some of the background.

https://www.nbc26.com/news/local-news/jeanna-giese-16-years-later-surviving-rabies-to-build-a-beautiful-life

I've learned a lot from this thread.

OP, I hope you get good news tomorrow/Wednesday.

This thread is fascinating, I had no idea how awful rabies was. Obviously you know its bad but 100% death rate is terrifying. We are very lucky in the UK. I hope those results come quickly OP

@PinkButtercups

As I've explained, my husband threw the bat, alive, into the field. Our intention was to release it and not to kill it.

However, once I started researching, I decided to call the health dept and that's when they advised me to try and find the bat. My husband searched for it and found it basically where he had left it. I think it's unusual that it hadn't moved for close to an hour.

He decided to quickly kill it because a. He didn't want to risk it getting away and not being able to test it. B. He didn't want to take a chance of it biting him when he picked it up. C. Because the health dept were going to have to kill it anyway. D. Because we had to keep a hold of the bat from Sat evening til Monday morning, and it felt cruel/not reasonable to keep it in a box in 38°C weather, and not sensible to bring it into our house. E. We were worried about it dying in the meantime.

He hit it quickly with a shovel and it was dead immediately. We hope to never have to do this again. We would never have killed it if we had seen it enter and leave our house with the full knowledge no one had been bitten, or of course if it never entered our house.

I am past the point of caring about the bat honestly. I'm more concerned with the health and wellbeing of my family and pet.

So your husband killed the bat but then he spent an hour looking for the bat that was apparently just sat in a field.

No OP you just killed the bat. That's sick.

I'm from the UK had have bats fly around nightly where we live. I certainly don't go round killing them.

You found a bat and instead of helping it outside you killed it?!

You are cruel ridiculous people.

You seriously need to calm down, unless it bit anyone (which presumably you would have mentioned).

In the UK, you would be committing an offence by handling it. Putting it in 3 plastic bags and in the fridge seems a tad excessive (mean).

For everyone saying I'm ridiculous. The bat was very much alive when I found it. My husband killed it before we bagged it up. If I had seen the bat fly in and caught it right away I wouldn't be worried. The reason we are worried is because we have no idea when it got into our house. A few days ago our kids left the door open for an extended period of time in the evening so it could have been in our house since then.

The bat was in a bedroom next to where our children sleep and the door was open.

There have been people who have been bitten by a bat and not even known because the mark is so small. This bat was very tiny.

I guess it's not something that is on a lot of your radar screens, being in the UK, but it is very much a risk here. We have to keep our dogs and cats vaccinated against rabies, and we live in a rural area where we do see a lot of raccoons and other animals that may carry rabies.

I think if our health authority told us to send off the bat first thing Monday morning then they don't see us as overreacting. In fact, that is exactly what you are supposed to do. The lady that we spoke to was very concerned that my husband had initially thrown the bat away. He spent an hour looking for it in the field. It hadn't moved. That is a sign of a sick bat, or so the woman on the phone told us.

When I called her back to tell her we had found it, I could hear her relief over the phone.

Do some research and try and put yourself in our shoes. Rabies kills almost 100% of those who show symptoms.

For those asking about us getting the vaccinations, apparently they can be obscenely expensive if the bat comes back non rabid. We spent a long time on the phone with various clinics/hospitals and no one could give us any indication of exactly how much this would cost. Of course, this happening on the weekend means that we can't get a hold of billing at our hospital, or our insurance.

Maybe people think I'm being dramatic. I'm sure I am. Only 3 or so people die from rabies in the US each year. But it's not something we are wanting to take a chance on. We have three children to think about.