There’s something almost cinematic about waking up in the middle of the night on the 22nd floor of a major downtown hotel, only to find bats circling your room in the dark. Not a scary film. It wasn’t a bad dream. Apparently, it was just a Tuesday night in Denver.
After precisely that situation occurred in August 2025, a commercial airline pilot, a 46-year-old married father of one whose identity has not been disclosed, is suing the Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel. The pilot was asleep in his room at 1550 Court Place when he was startled awake at around 2:30 in the morning by what he described as a commotion, according to the lawsuit filed by his lawyer, Edward Lomena. Bats. Several of them. Flying around a room on the 22nd floor of the largest hotel in Denver.
Hotel maintenance was called. The bats were dealt with — or so it seemed. However, the lawsuit claims that workers failed to seal the opening beneath the air conditioner where the animals are thought to have entered. And crucially, the pilot was never moved to another room. He did not move. Shaken, understandably, but not moving.
Things worsened the following morning. The pilot saw a bat still dangling from the curtain rod as he stood up. He filmed it. In the end, Denver Animal Control was contacted to retrieve the animal for a rabies examination. Then a bite mark appeared on his foot, which he claims he hadn’t even felt during the night, turning an unsettling evening into a serious medical emergency. It’s worth taking a moment to consider that detail alone. Bat bites can be so quiet and tiny. You can doze off during one.
Rabies treatment, when you’ve potentially been exposed, isn’t optional. It’s a serious, multi-shot regimen that costs a lot of money. According to the pilot’s lawyer, the medical expenses in this instance exceeded $100,000. for one overnight business trip. The type of stay that was meant to be standard: arrive, go to training, and then take a flight home.
It’s difficult to ignore how cruel that is. This wasn’t a cheap motel on a highway. There are more than 1,200 rooms at the Sheraton Denver Downtown. It is, by any measure, a flagship property. However, the hotel’s response, at least according to the lawsuit, was haphazard at best when bats managed to get through openings beneath air conditioners on guest floors. According to reports, the experience has made it difficult for the pilot to sleep in hotel rooms at all, which is a problem that goes far beyond the medical expenses because his job requires him to do so on a regular basis.
To put it simply, Lomena said: “A bat bit him. He feared that he would pass away and leave his family fatherless. That’s not embellishment. If left untreated, rabies is almost always fatal. The fear made sense from a medical standpoint.
It is unclear what the lawsuit will ultimately reveal about the hotel’s awareness of the bat problem, how long it may have existed, and what actions were taken or not. A bat entering through an unsealed gap on the 22nd floor raises legitimate concerns about the state of maintenance prior to this incident. Hotels have an obligation to maintain safe conditions for guests.
In one version of this tale, an air conditioner’s seal, which is likely a twenty-dollar repair, stops everything that comes after. The lawsuit, the $100,000 in medical treatment, the sleepless hotel nights for a working pilot. How this will be settled in court is still unknown. But the details already on record are uncomfortable reading for anyone with a hotel stay on the calendar.
