An airline pilot staying at a Marriott affiliated hotel was reportedly attacked by a swarm of bats while sleeping in his hotel room. The hotel didn’t even offer to let him move rooms, and he has spent over $100K on rabies shots, according to a lawsuit. Wow…
Bats swarm room at Sheraton Denver, bite pilot
An airline pilot from California is suing Marriott over an incident that happened at the Sheraton Denver Downtown back on August 29, 2025, where he was staying during training. While the airline he works for isn’t named, it’s pretty clear he works for United, given that this is where the company’s pilot training center is, and that’s a hotel the airline uses for training.
Anyway, the 46-year-old man was sleeping in his room on the 22nd floor, when he suddenly woke up at around 2:30AM to “commotion.” As his lawyer explained, “imagine you’re sleeping in a hotel room and you wake up and you see bats flying around, that’s scary.”
The pilot immediately notified the hotel, and maintenance staff were sent, who removed the bats, but didn’t offer to relocate him to another room, according to the lawsuit. He noticed there was a hole in the room’s air conditioning unit, “which appeared to provide access for the bats to enter the room,” causing him to shove a towel in there to close that opening.
He eventually fell asleep again, only to wake up in the morning and still see a single bat in the room, near the top of the curtains by the window. Animal control was called in to remove the last bat, and the workers reportedly informed the pilot that several of the bats in the area had tested positive for rabies, and they advised him to get treated immediately.
The pilot later discovered that he had been bitten on his foot, so he got a series of rabies shots, with total medical bills coming out to over $100K. The pilot was terrified of getting rabies, and feared for his life.
Following the incident, the pilot had trouble sleeping in hotel rooms, which became a big issue for his job, given that pilots constantly stay overnight at hotels.
The pilot initially engaged in settlement talks with Marriott, the parent company of Sheraton, but the claim is that they offered him a small sum to “go away,” claiming that these kinds of things happen, and that no one is at fault.
So then the pilot filed a proper lawsuit, requesting compensation for his medical bills and for the trauma. As the lawyer explained:
“We believe the evidence will show that this incident was preventable and that the hotel’s response fell well below what any guest should expect. No one should have to worry about being exposed to bats while sleeping in a hotel room.”
“We attempted for months to resolve this matter before filing suit. Despite providing medical records, photographs, and other supporting evidence, Marriott’s settlement offers did not reflect the seriousness of the incident or the harm suffered by my client. As a result, we had no choice but to file this lawsuit.”
I have so many questions about this incident & lawsuit
As I see it, there are two topics here — the initial incident, and then everything that happened after the fact, from the treatment to the lawsuit.
My goodness, the thought of bats swarming a hotel room is something that’s going to give me nightmares, as it’s not even a fear I had considered… and here I was thinking that I was safe as long as I checked under the bed for monsters!
Seriously though… I get that stuff happens, but… how?! How could that even happen? I certainly wonder if the pilot asked to move rooms, but regardless of whether or not he did, how did the hotel not immediately relocate him? Was this truly an isolated incident that only happened this one time, or was this a recurring issue at the hotel? This seems absolutely bonkers.
It’s hard to imagine any world in which the hotel’s handling of this wasn’t completely unacceptable. They didn’t remove all the bats? They didn’t patch up the hole that likely allowed the bats to enter? They didn’t insist he move rooms? They didn’t immediately call animal control the first time around?
That being said, regarding the treatment, why would rabies shots cost $100K? Based on a quick search, it looks like they should cost thousands of dollars at most (more like $5K or so), rather than $100K, so what am I missing there? And would the airline not cover that kind of treatment, since he was on the job?
I have to say, this absolutely seems to me like a case where suing for negligence and trauma seems appropriate. If you’re staying in a hotel, you should expect that they’ll do everything in their power to prevent you from being bitten by bats while sleeping. Regardless of how preventable the situation was in the first place, the response here was nothing short of unacceptable.
Bottom line
A United Airlines pilot staying at the Sheraton Denver Downtown had his hotel room invaded by bats in the middle of the night while sleeping. He immediately let the hotel know, and they claimed to address the issue. However, he woke up hours later, only to find that there was still a bat in the room, and that he had been bitten in the foot.
He claims he racked up over $100K in medical bills because of this, including for rabies shots. He’s now suing Marriott, after the company refused to settle in a reasonable way.
What do you make of this bizarre Sheraton Denver pilot bat situation?