Is it Safer to Sleep with a Cow or a Bat?
13 Mar 2010
“I’m sure something is flying around my room” I complained to my parents one night many years ago. But when bedroom nights went on, neither I nor my parents could find any flying monster. They told me I had been dreaming and to go back to sleep.
Two nights later, my Mother switched on a lamp in the living room and screamed as a bat flew out of it. I felt vindicated. But now the task was to catch the bat, and it was not easy. How many people have the questionable privilege of sleeping with a bat?
Dr’s Bryna Warshawsky and Shalini Desai report in the Canadian Medical Association Journal that such encounters occur to about 10 per 10,000 people each year. So I was in fairly select company! But if a bat picks you out of the crowd for a sleeping companion, how hazardous is it?
Since 1995 Canada and the U.S. have recommended the testing of bats to see if they’re infected with rabies They also advise using rabies vaccine if a bat was in the same room as a child or a sleeping person. This recommendation was introduced because a bat rabies virus was isolated from people who had never had any obvious contact with a bat. My encounter was many years before 1995 and I did not receive any treatment.
So was I lucky that I didn’t develop rabies? Fortunately, it’s now been discovered that rabies is extremely rare if there’s been no obvious contact with a bat. In fact, in Canada, it’s been calculated that sleeping with a bat in the room would result in one case of rabies every 84years! And that 2.6 million people would have to be treated to prevent one case of rabies due to bedtime exposure.
But there are a couple of provisos. If a bat lands on a person or causes a wound, preventive treatment is recommended.
It surprised me that the risk of sleeping with a bat was so safe, as I thought otherwise. In fact, if anyone gave me a choice of sleeping with a bat or a cow, it would take just one nanosecond to pick a cow.
But it appears I don’t have a great track record with evaluating the risk of injury from animals. I’ve never given it a second thought about walking across a pasture with cows or worried about giving them a gentle pat. But I’d be wrong again.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that 20 people are killed by cows every year in the U.S. How could this happen?
In some cases cows attacked people by ramming them, knocking them down, kicking them on the head, or goring them. Mention the word “being gored”, and we think of the idiots who chance fate by running with the bulls during festival time in Pamplona, Spain. But we forget, or at least I did, that some cows have horns!
Another article in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report states that most of the cow deaths occurred in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska. Head and chest injuries were the most common cause of death.
Killer cows are an international problem. An English policeman was walking his dog when suddenly a herd of cows stampeded. “One cow butted me in the back and there were hoofs all around me” he said. The result of this encounter was four broken ribs and a punctured lung.
Are there lessons to be learned from these deaths? You bet. Don’t turn off your hearing aid when walking through a pasture. You may not hear an approaching attack from behind. Dogs can also change a placid cud-chewing cow into a potential killer. Think twice before running into a herd of cows if your dog decides to do so. This has killed several people. If you walk through a field of cows it’s prudent to give them plenty of room. And also remember that cows, like other animals, are fiercely protective of their young.
The evidence shows that bats are safer than cows. But given the evidence I’d still prefer to spend the night near a cow than a bat, with nose plugs of course!
