Pilot sues Sheraton hotel after bats invade 22nd-floor room, leaving rabies bill near $100,000

The guest, a 46-year-old married father from Anaheim, California, was staying at the hotel during airline training on Aug. 29, 2025. He woke around 2:30 a.m. to a commotion and saw bats circling the room at the largest hotel in the city with more than 1,200 rooms, according to CBS Coloradowhich reviewed the lawsuit and the medical bills.

Hotel maintenance came up and cleared out some of the bats but missed at least one, his attorney, Ed Lomena, told the station. The hotel did not move him to another room.

Spotting a gap beneath the air-conditioning unit that he believed the bats had used to get in, the pilot jammed a towel into it and fell back asleep, the complaint states.

In the morning he found another bat hanging from the curtain rod. He filmed it and called Denver Animal Control, which took the animal away for rabies testing.

Denver Animal Protection had warned a month earlier that two rabid bats turned up in the city in July 2025, CBS Colorado reported.

Rabies is nearly always fatal once symptoms appear and can only be stopped by treatment given soon after exposure.

The pilot was billed nearly $100,000 for the vaccine and post-exposure treatment, which his insurance covered. The complaint puts the total above $102,000, according to People.

The captured bat later tested negative, Lomena said.

“Imagine you’re sleeping in a hotel room and you wake up, and you see bats flying around; that’s scary,” Lomena told CBS Colorado.

His client first tried to settle with Marriott International, Sheraton’s parent company, which offered only a small sum and argued that such incidents were no one’s fault, the lawsuit claims.

He filed suit in Denver on June 5, 2026, naming Marriott and Sheraton License Operating Co., the court docket published by BusinessDen shows. He is demanding a jury trial with damages for medical costs, injury, emotional distress, court costs and attorney fees.