Injured deer crash into buildings across campus, some later found dead

Content Warning: This article contains mention of animal death.

As students prepared for final exams, several injured deer ran across campus on Sunday, causing chaos and confusion. Two deer crashed into the Engineering Building on Sunday, creating a commotion inside, while another was reportedly dragged onto the grass outside, shot and hauled away.

At around 3 p.m., a deer toppled the metal fence surrounding construction on the Lois B. DeFleur Walkway, according to a video obtained by Pipe Dream. Two other deer then ran onto the construction zone, with one slamming into a University Union door before following the others.

A deer was found dead near the exit ramp at the lot between the University Union and the Engineering Building.

The Engineering Building’s garage door was open at the time as members from Binghamton Motorsports, an organization composed of two teams that design vehicles “made in-house under the supervision of experienced shop technicians and faculty,” worked outside on parts for their Formula SAE electric vehicle. They were joined by Cefast, a Formula SAE team from Brazil that Binghamton Motorsports was hosting before its competition in Michigan later this week.

At around 3 p.m., a deer bolted through the garage entrance into the Fabrication Lab, followed moments later by another. A video from Binghamton Motorsports showed the deer acting erratically and stumbling to the ground while in the lab.

Lara Ahmad, a sophomore majoring in computer engineering, was working on a final project with her friend in the Engineering Building’s basement. After stepping out to grab food, her friend called and told her a “rabid” deer was inside the building. Upon returning, Ahmad found “blood smeared all over the glass where we were working,” she told Pipe Dream.

Ahmad shared a video of the deer by the lab’s glass doors. The deer, bleeding from its mouth, appeared confused before it bumped into a panel and smeared blood onto the glass frame.

One of the deer then left the building and ran straight to the University Union’s side door entrance.

“The deer just ran straight into the Union doors,” said Jennifer Pillai, a freshman majoring in industrial systems engineering. “And then it just kept banging its head against the door, it was bleeding everywhere. It looked really scary, really dystopian too, like blood all over the face.”

Pillai said the deer eventually ran across the street and disappeared into the trees by College-in-the-Woods.

Around 3:40 p.m., a police officer and another individual dragged the second deer out of the Engineering Building and onto the grass. Another officer told a nearby crowd of students to back away from the scene and “give [the deer] some peace.”

Students said that within a few minutes, a gunshot rang out. The deer’s body was left on the grass before being hauled into a University vehicle.

Requests for comment have been given to the University Police Department, Facilities Management and other administrators. It is unclear what caused the deer to behave erratically, or whether the bodies will be tested for illnesses like rabies or chronic wasting disease.

“You don’t expect to be getting Dunkin’ and going back to studying and just seeing blood smeared onto the door walls and everything,” said Aleksandra Berrios, a junior majoring in psychology. “So it was very shocking, and I personally am not that comfortable taking videos or taking pictures of that sort of stuff, so I didn’t. But then I saw some people that were also very caught up in what was happening and everything.”

“So very shocking for that to just happen when you’re in the midst of studying for finals and doing projects and stuff, and then you kind of just have to go back to whatever you were doing.”