A Virginia doctor woke in the night to find a bat forcing its way between her lips. It was trying to push past her teeth and into her mouth.

Dr Krista Edelman, a gastroenterologist from Richmond, has shared the ordeal online. Her Instagram post has been shared more than 33,000 times.

She was asleep in her nearly 100-year-old home off Grove Avenue. Bats often slip into old homes through small gaps in attics and chimneys.

Moments earlier, she had been dreaming about a small mouse trying to get into her mouth. Then she woke into the real-life horror.

'So brace yourself, this is a bat PSA,' Edelman warned. 'I reach up to my mouth... and then I touch something that is kind of slimy and a little hairy and cool,' she said.

A Terrifying Discovery

She said she 'immediately' knew it was a bat. It was, she said, 'legitimately trying to burrow between my lips into my mouth, trying to get past my teeth.'

Edelman grabbed the creature, threw it across the room and screamed. Her husband reached for a T-ball bat.

But from her medical training, she knew killing it was the wrong move. 'I knew we were supposed to try to catch this bat so it can actually be tested and see if there are rabies in its brain,' she said.

She rang a friend, an infectious disease doctor. His anxiety heightened her own alarm. 'What I didn't fully realise at the time was that the closer to the brain the exposure, the markedly accelerated risk of transmission,' she said.

She went to the emergency department at St Mary's Hospital. There she was seen by Dr Adam Landsee, the assistant medical director for the ER.

Landsee said anyone who wakes to a bat in their home should assume the worst. Bat teeth are so small, he said, that bites can go unnoticed.

Rabies Risk Explained

Dr Julia Murphy, Virginia's public health veterinarian, said bat submissions for rabies testing are up this year. Positive cases, however, have not risen.

She urged anyone who encounters a bat to trap it, as Edelman did. Testing typically takes around 48 hours.

Infected bats are responsible for seven in ten rabies deaths in the US. This is despite around 97 per cent of bats tested being free from rabies.

Left untreated, rabies can remain undetected for weeks or months before reaching the brain. It eventually causes brain damage.

Edelman's bat later tested negative. Even so, she took no chances.

Because she had had direct contact and was never vaccinated, she began the rabies vaccine series. She also received immunoglobulin as a precaution.

Doctor's Urgent Warning

'If you live in an older home, check those attics and chimneys!' Edelman urged in her post. 'And if you wake up with a bat in the room and aren't sure whether you had contact with it, don't assume you're fine. It's worth getting medical advice right away!'

She said she felt 'compelled to put it out there' because the experience had humbled her. 'I grew up in rural Hanover. I think I know the basics of things,' she said. 'I was humbled about how I didn't really know what to do in that situation,' she added.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, anyone who finds a bat indoors should never touch it with bare hands. It should be trapped gently under a box or bucket in thick gloves.

It can then be handed to the local health department for testing. The CDC also advises sealing gaps as small as a quarter of an inch with caulk, steel wool or screens.

Read more