Grandma wasn’t run over by a reindeer but a Hugunin Hall window was. Around noon on Oct. 29, a six-point buck jumped through the window of Hugunin Hall. Izaak Toro, senior, mechanical engineering major, was walking down the hall from the laundry room when he saw a flash out of the corner of his eye. It was then that the deer crashed through the window just five feet from where Toro was standing.

“Is this really happening right now?” Toro questioned to himself as two of the cleaning staff who were coming from the stairwell bolted out the other door. Toro quickly rushed around the corner to a side door and held the door open, hoping the deer would find its way out. He quickly called 9-1-1 and campus and city police responded.

While all of this was happening in the basement, Toro’s roommate, junior general engineering major Andrew Rasmussen, was coming back from checking their mail when he heard the crash. He rushed down the stairs and came face to face with the deer.

“When I turned the corner on the stairs, I came face to face with it and froze,” Rasmussen recalled. “I started running to every floor, trying to get a RA to tell them what was happening.”

While Rasmussen was trying to find a Resident Assistant, Toro was outside.

“I was trying to keep everyone back away from the building,” Toro explained. The deer had turned around from the staircase and made its way down the hall towards the kitchen. Around 2:00 p.m. a hunter arrived at Hugunin and found the deer between the kitchen and the laundry room. The deer was severely injured and needed to be put to rest.

As the colors and seasons change, we encourage drivers to be constantly vigilant. You never know when or where a deer will run.