WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — A young deer that found its way onto the Purdue University campus early Monday (May 19) and leaped though a window at the Lilly Hall of Life Sciences was safely caught and released back into the wild.
Purdue police officers responded to a call around 8 a.m. and found the deer in an approximately 6-foot-deep window well alongside the building. Officers called the School of Veterinary Medicine for assistance. Thomas Jaskal, a pest/rodent control technician for the Purdue grounds department who also responded, said the deer weighed 90-100 pounds.
Anesthesiologists from the Large Animal Hospital tranquilized the deer around 9 a.m. The animal bolted through the window into a hallway after a first tranquilizer. The deer, which had minor cuts to its face and leg, was rendered unconscious by a second tranquilizer dart.
“We occasionally have deer that wander onto campus, and once they get on campus they don’t know how to get out,” Jaskal said. “Fortunately, this deer was OK, and we were able to take it back into the wild.”
The deer was examined by the veterinary staff and taken by truck to an undeveloped wooded area south of campus and released.
