Massachusetts woman hit with five-figure medical bill after a wild bat flew into her mouth on vacation
Erica Kahn, 33, was visiting Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in Arizona last August when the horror encounter with the winged mammal took place.
3 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
The former biomedical engineer noticed a number of bats flying around while she was outside taking pictures of the night sky, but didn't think much of it.
That is, until one got too close for comfort, winding up trapped between her camera and face.
When she screamed in terror, an unknown part of the bat wound up in her mouth for a few seconds.
Her father, a physician who had been traveling with her, said she should immediately start a course of rabies treatments, even though she wasn't sure if she had been bitten.
She quickly went online to purchase a medical insurance plan before going to a hospital in Flagstaff to begin treatments — under the impression it would cover her two-week course of rabies shots, which she received at clinics in Arizona, Massachusetts and Colorado, KFF reported.
But her biggest shock of all came when the bill arrived, showing she owed $20,749 between the four facilities — 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.
3 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 – stock.adobe.com
She didn't 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.
'I thought it must have been a mistake,' she told the outlet. 'I guess I was naive.'
3 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
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.
Khan told the outlet she's since gotten a new job and once again has health insurance. She's negotiated some of the bills down a bit, but says she still owed more than $19,000 for her treatments — which she said she plans to continue appealing.
Despite her horrifying encounter with wildlife — ripped from the stuff of nightmares — Khan said it hasn't put a damper on her love for the great outdoors.
'I know what bats taste like now. It's an earthy, sweet kind of flavor,' she joked to the outlet. 'It's actually a pretty funny story — if it weren't for the horrible medical bill that came with it.'
Around 4,000 animal rabies cases are reported each year in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — with less than 10 people dying of the virus per annum.
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%.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Fox News
3 hours ago
- Fox News
Bat flies into tourist's mouth during Arizona night sky photography trip
A Massachusetts woman had a scary encounter while traveling to Arizona to visit her father. Erica Kahn was in Northern Arizona with her dad last August to take their annual pictures of the sky. "We like to take photos of the night sky and the stars, and it's something we've been doing for the past 10 years now, but this was the first time this incident occurred," said Kahn to FOX 10. While snapping photos, she said a bat flew directly into her mouth. "I don't know what part of the bat went into my mouth," she said. "Maybe the wing, the head." "I had my strap around my camera around my head so that it wouldn't fall down, and because of that, it kind of got trapped between my mouth and the camera," said Kahn. Arizona is home to 28 species of bats that assemble in areas near lights, agricultural or playing fields, ponds or other water sources, according to the Arizona Game & Fish Department (AGF). The leading cause of human rabies death is contact with infected bats. Kahn knew she needed to be checked for rabies immediately — and was shocked to learn that her treatment was not covered, she said. Since she'd lost her job, she took out a new health plan with an insurance firm. "They kind of lied to me on the phone when I said, 'I need to go to the emergency room … tomorrow. Is this gonna be effective? Is this gonna cover [me] if I need rabies shots?' And [the person] said, 'Yes, yes, it's gonna cover it. You're good to go,'" Kahn said. Kahn was unaware of a 30-day waiting period for coverage to kick in — which left her with a bill of over $20,000. Fox News Digital reached out to the insurance firm for comment. "Our healthcare system is so broken and that's why I'm kind of happy to take these interviews," Kahn told FOX 10. She added, "I want to shine a light that this should not be the cost of getting a life-saving rabies vaccine." The leading cause of human rabies death is contact with infected bats, according to the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC). Seven out of 10 people who die from rabies were infected by bats, according to the CDC. In 2019, a 21-year-old man died from being scratched by a bat in Canada.
New York Post
7 hours ago
- New York Post
I found out I had colon cancer after a scary surprise at the gym
Personal trainer Bill Maeda, 56, has always been pretty high energy. He was only 7 or 8 years old when he first started working out, inspired by the speed and athleticism of Bruce Lee — and his muscles. 'I had never seen muscles,' he said. 'I was blown away by that. He just looks so deadly.' And it was while doing his job — training at the gym — in 2012 that he realized something was seriously wrong, sending him to the hospital to discover he had Stage 3 colon cancer. 4 Bill Maeda is a fitness coach with 2.3 million followers on Instagram. But he didn't shy away from explaining how some of his lifestyle choices — like diet and sleep — might have contributed to his cancer. GORUCK Maeda was working on some martial arts moves with a client, who kept practicing his kicks against a pad Maeda had over his stomach. When he went to the bathroom, there was blood — a lot of blood. 'Apparently, when he kicked me, the cancerous lesion that I had tore,' he said. He went to the ER, where he was put into immediate surgery. 'Knowing what I know now, I would have gone in way sooner than I did,' he said. It's not that Maeda didn't have symptoms before — they were just easy to brush off as something else. Living in Los Angeles and working as a trainer in gyms and on movie sets, he appeared to be the picture of good health. When he started to have 'weird bowel movements' in his 40s, he attributed the change to his eating choices. 4 'When I was told I had cancer, I did what I always do: I went numb,' he said. 'My diet was so god awful back then,' he said. 'I was eating like two pints of ice cream. And probably my diet had a lot to do with [the cancer]. But I just thought that my system was becoming intolerant of my already really bad diet. Because, back then, I was eating boxes of macadamia chocolate. I mean, it was bad.' 'I am in the best shape of my life now because I'm putting the energy into recovery from what I'm doing.' Bill Maeda Surprised? According to Maeda, it's actually not all that uncommon in the world of personal trainers. 'You should see the behind-the-scenes on us,' he said. 'We're like serial killers, where you think we're just normal and we're real and then we go home and we have this altered life. When I think of the amount of sugar and garbage that I was eating — it was a mental illness. It was a full-on disorder.' 4 'My diet was so god awful back then,' he said. GORUCK His only other real symptom was a pain that developed in his solar plexus, which would sometimes get so bad he'd have to double over — a move he would try to hide by pretending he was just examining his clients' foot positions. 'When I would go into that position, the pain would dissipate,' he said. 'And it never occurred to me, well, after that happens a few hundred times, maybe you should go to a doctor. No, I kept just denying it.' He also figured he wasn't really much of a candidate for cancer since it didn't run in his family, although he admits he was a 'troubled soul' in high school who smoked cigarettes and 'experimented pretty heavily' with methamphetamines. But he still believes the 'biggest mistake' he made was routinely neglecting sleep. 4 'Apparently, when he kicked me, the cancerous lesion that I had tore,' he said. 'I had trained myself in high school to operate on small amounts of sleep because I thought that's what it required to be a special forces guy,' he said. 'If you're a real tough guy, you can get by on less sleep than everybody else, eating less food, bad food, etc.' When he got his cancer diagnosis, he admits he never worried about death: 'I took it one day at a time and always assumed things would be alright,' he said. His assumption turned out to be right: He's been cancer-free for 13 years now and he feels better than ever. For one thing, getting cancer made him clean up his diet and prioritize rest. He also trains less often and less hard than he used to. So, then, how does he maintain 8% body fat? 'People say, 'How do you get your body fat level so low if your diet is random? You don't seem to have a really strict cardio or whatever program,'' he said. 'Since I was in high school, I have never had a job that required me to sit.' Maeda — who is a brand ambassador for Go Ruck — only trains 20 to 30 minutes a day, and he varies it up, sharing his minimalist, rucking-based routines with his 2.3 million followers on Instagram and his 1.5 million followers on TikTok. 'I am in the best shape of my life now because I'm putting the energy into recovery from what I'm doing,' he said.
Bloomberg
9 hours ago
- Bloomberg
Venus Williams Exposed All That's Wrong With Health Insurance
Venus Williams returned to the professional tennis circuit in July with a win in the first round of the DC Open. (She lost in a late round.) In an interview on the court following the match, the 45-year-old made a somewhat surprising admission on why she decided to return to competitive tennis. 'I had to come back for the insurance because they informed me earlier this year I'm on COBRA," she said, referring to the federal law that allows individuals to temporarily continue their employer-sponsored health insurance after leaving a job by paying the premiums. Williams has made more than $40 million in prize money during her tennis career and has a net worth estimated to be almost $100 million. There's little worry she'd become uninsured due to lack of funds. Still, her comments get at the problem buried so deep into our system of health insurance that no policymaker has the nerve to touch it, which is that health and work shouldn't be linked.
