On Saturday evening, following the discovery of a bat inside Baxter House on Wednesday, house residents were transported to Maine Medical Center in Portland to receive their first round of rabies shots.

Baxter resident Lionel Yu ’28 said several residents saw the bat fly around the kitchen and common room area Wednesday afternoon. Residents called the Office of Safety and Security that day but received no response.

“Security was first made aware of a bat being observed in Baxter on Wednesday evening.  Unfortunately, that request for assistance was misplaced between other calls for service immediately before and after the call, so we did not respond,” Associate Vice President of Safety and Security Bill Harwood wrote in an email to the Orient.

The bat was not seen again until Saturday, when it appeared in the common room. Between Wednesday and Saturday, residents did not know where the bat was.

“On Saturday…, the bat was crawling around. I saw a video … of it just kind of walking around with its arms and wings out,” Yu said. “I think, in that whole mess, someone was holding open the door, and they shooed it out.”

On Saturday evening, after the second sighting, the Office of Residential Life (ResLife) and Health Services were informed of the bat’s presence, and Security was contacted again about the situation. Subsequently, ResLife staff, Security, several deans and Health Services met with Baxter residents.

“We contacted our vendor immediately for humane capture,” Harwood wrote. “A short time later, we were told by a student the bat had flown away. [Since] it was gone, it could not be tested for diseases.”

Unable to determine if the bat had rabies, Health Services and the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) determined that students needed to receive post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) for rabies. PEP is a series of six injections: one human rabies immune globulin (HRIG) and five rabies vaccines. These vaccinations must occur over the course of several weeks.

HRIG is the advised treatment for people who have had confirmed exposure to rabies, while the vaccines are preventative measures.

“We follow established public health guidance and presume a potential exposure. While rabies is rare, it is almost universally fatal once symptoms appear, but timely treatment can prevent infection,” Director of Health Services Christine Mahoney wrote in an email to the Orient. “To assess risk, we consider factors such as the amount of time an individual spent near the bat, the type of exposure and whether the person was asleep or otherwise not fully alert, as very small bites can go unnoticed.”

When it comes to bats, the Maine CDC classifies a rabies exposure as a bite, scratch, any contact with a bat without gloves or waking up to a bat in a bedroom overnight.

“I think the crucial thing was that most of the sightings were on the first floor living room area, but then someone said they saw it on the third floor.… I think that bit of information is what made everything change,” Yu said. “The recommendation [for] everyone who hadn’t been vaccinated prior and was sleeping in the house was to get the full treatment.”

Brunswick’s Mid Coast Hospital did not have enough HRIG treatments on hand, so Baxter residents had to travel to Maine Medical Center on Saturday night to get the HRIG treatment and the first round of the rabies vaccines.

“Probably 20 of us went [to the hospital that night]; that was a super long process. We just waited there for them to process everyone as fast as they could. We were probably at the [emergency room] from 11:30 p.m. to 3 a.m.,” Yu said.

Students who were not treated Saturday night were advised by Health Services to seek treatment immediately the next morning.

On Wednesday, residents whose first vaccine was administered on Saturday night received their second vaccine. All residents will continue to receive vaccines for the next two weeks. The College is paying for students’ treatment if their insurance does not cover it.

“It was a stressful thing that was kind of bothersome [since] it derailed a lot of people’s weekends. But Bowdoin’s been handling it well,” Yu said.

Baxter has been deep cleaned and is being checked for sites animals may enter through, according to Assistant Director of Residential Life Alex Gates ’22.

“[ResLife] has been working with all our campus partners to prevent any future animal intrusions to the best of our ability in these old buildings,” Gates said.