Forest Park Bat Bites Man Jogging At Night, Man Is Recovering

PORTLAND, OR – Bill LaMarche did not turn into a bat. Then again, it was not a vampire bat that bit LaMarche the night of October 2 as he was jogging through Forest Park.

It was around 7:30 p.m. and getting dark. LaMarche was using his headlamp to help guide him along the path.

Then the attack.

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"It felt like a baseball hit me in the back of my head," LaMarche, the former communications director for the Oregon Zoo, tells Patch. "I went back to to see who hit me and I couldn't find anyone.

"That's when I saw the baseball-sized bat on the trail feasting on insects."

LaMarche says the bat then flew back into the trees and saw his headlamp.

"I was kind of freaked out by then and ran quickly to get out of there when the bat swooped down and bit me again."

LaMarche was bit on his neck and lower head.

"It was really odd," he says. "bats are normally super docile."

There are 10 different species of bats known to be in Forest Park. A report by the Forest Park Conservancy determined that bats make up about 25 percent of the species of mammal found there.

LaMarche isn't 100 percent sure which of the 10 species had it in for him that night.

"It could have been a big brown bat but it was hard to get a look at it," he says. "As soon as my light was on it, it flew into the trees.

"It didn't come down again until it was behind me."

From the park, LaMarche knew that he had no choice but to head to the doctor for rabies shots.

"I wouldn't have worried much but rabies is 99 percent fatal if left untreated," he says.

That involved eight shots the first day followed by three more spread out over the week.

LaMarche says that he's feeling great and has started running again.

"I've gotten back on that horse but during the daylight hours," he says.

"No more night running for Billy."

File photo of a silver-haired bat, one of the 10 species found in Forest Park via Tinsley Hunsdorfer/Audubon Society of Portland.