About me

My name is Zachary Byron Helm. I am a film maker, stunt driver and founder of the Denver Hearse Association.

How I got into bats.

In retrospect, bats were always with me. I look back now and realize how often I drew them into pictures, bought Halloween items with bats on them or just generally had bat related stuff around me. If you had asked me if I had a thing for bats I would have probably still thought that I wasn't particularly drawn to them any more than the next Goth who likes all things spooky.

In recent years, more and more bat memes, videos and media started showing up online, mostly fruit bats since they're the most publicly accessible bats out there (they're cute, they look like dogs and from what I'm told, they don't bitch at you as much when you wake them up as many of the insectivorous bats do) I was also spending a lot of time with Sara, who in fact, very much did have a thing for bats and about 10 bat tattoos at the time. We went to see "Live Bats" with Rob Mies.

This started getting me more interested in them as a whole. Unfortunately, one of the things bat care professionals always tell you is that bats are not pets and not to handle them. That's pretty unfortunate because ALL the videos and memes make you want to do is go find a bat and snuggle the fuck out of it dammit!

A few years later I was outside working on my car when my friend called me. "There's a bat at my apartment complex and I think it's sick, do you want to come see it?" she asked. The answer "Don't ask stupid questions!" was obvious. I quickly checked out some bat handling techniques from Bat Care International and headed over. You can see a video of this event here

I gave him some water and stayed up all night until about 6:00 AM when I called the local rescue where I got involved in rehab work.