After a bat flew into their Alpharetta home, one family is taking every precaution to make sure her family avoids catching rabies — even if it means shelling out $14,000 for each of five family members, Channel 2 Action News reported.
“I was very much concerned for my kids’ safety because they were all home from school,” Karen Rigsbee told the news station.
The bat was flying around in the middle of the day, which was odd to her since bats are nocturnal, she told Channel 2.
Rigsbee’s son caught the bat and released it outside.
That’s when Rigsbee called poison control, who told her the bat may have rabies and because the bat entered the home overnight, it could have bitten one of them.
Georgia Poison Center director Gaylord Lopez told Channel 2 they recommend every family member be treated with the vaccine.
“This is four shots over the course of a month,” Lopez said. “If someone develops rabies it’s almost one hundred percent fatal.”
Rigsbee said she hopes insurance can drop the price.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are only one to two human rabies cases per year in the U.S. and most come from bats. The CDC recommends "bat-proofing" your home by covering openings larger than a quarter-inch.
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