HARVEY - Denise Guy was enjoying a performance by The Top Cats at Boomtown Casino last year when she felt a burning sensation in her leg.
She looked down and was shocked by what she saw clinging to her leg.
"If anyone would have told me, 'You're going to have a bat bite tonight,' I would have laughed at them," Guy said.
Now she's suing the West Bank casino for the unusual bite she suffered last year.
"I started jumping up and flailing my arms and the guy that was with me he said, 'What's wrong? What was that?' He saw it fly off and I said, 'It's a bat. Run!'" demonstrating how she swatted it away with her hand.
Bats are the main animal carriers of rabies, especially in Louisiana. And they usually prefer other animals for blood. Untreated rabies, though, is a killer.
Guy went to the emergency room in Slidell as a precaution. She said the triage nurse said the bites looked like other bat bites she's treated.
Guy was given the first in a series of five preventive injections.
"It was very painful. I mean, they had to shoot me all around the bite," she said. "My knee was, like, the size of almost a cabbage. It was ... horrible. It hurt."
Guy still has the blood-stained pants she says she wore that night.
In the lawsuit, she claims Boomtown failed to provide a safe environment and allowed a bat inside the entertainment area.
"They gave me a Band-Aid. They handed me a Baind-Aid!" she said complaining about what she says was a lack of concern by employees.
The lawsuit wants Boomtown to pay for her pain and suffering and her medical costs. She said her medical bills totaled $27,000. Her insurance company paid for her treatment minus her co-pays.
Boomtown Casino's parent company, Pinnacle Entertainment Inc. said, it does not comment on pending litigation.