When Scot Bertram, the general manager of Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM, came into work on Wednesday morning, he was greeted by three men dragging something heavy out of the doors of Dow Hotel and Conference Center. He spotted limbs on what he originally thought was a large piece of luggage, and as he parked his car a deer, wrapped in a red curtain moments before, bounded into the woods.
As he entered the building, Bertram saw the trail of blood leading down the hall. On the window was a smear of red. The window next to it was shattered. Bertram compared the scene, with its construction plastic and spattered blood, to a scene from “American Psycho.”
“Saying it’s all over the place is a bit of an overstatement,” Bertram said. “But it was in a lot of places.”
Shortly before 8 a.m. four members of Pi Beta Phi were cutting through the Dow Hotel to get to class when they saw a four-point buck crash through a window and into the under-construction area of Dow formerly known as the Weigand Computer Lab.
This is not the first time a deer has broken into a campus building. In 2012, a deer broke through a ground-floor window in Niedfeldt Residence, which was a women’s dorm at the time.
“He looked really disoriented,” said senior Faith Witkowski. “I was freaked out, just because it was so powerful. If a deer charges you, what are you going to do? You can’t punch a deer.”
Members of campus security and maintenance were able to wrap the buck in a red curtain and use it to calm it down and remove it from the building.
“Our speculation is that because it’s mating season, it saw its reflection [and attacked it],” said Bill Whorley, director of campus security.
The three men were able to drag the deer by its antlers and release it. Although it sustained some injuries, it ran off into the woods, Whorley said.
“Thankfully, there were no guests around,” said Aaron Tracey, director of hospitality operations at the Dow Hotel. “I think it’s quite funny that it happened on Halloween.”
Tracey said the broken window had already been replaced and the blood cleaned up.
“It was pretty short and sweet,” Whorley said.
