A student from Iowa State woke up in the middle of the night to the fluttering of what she thought was her bedroom fan but was instead a bat flapping its wings on her leg.

Living in Helser Hall, the first-year students Brynn Chappel and Maya Seger experienced a bat in their dorm room.

Chappel, a first-year in graphic design, said she felt something in her lap at 5:30 in the morning.

“I didn’t know what it was, so I grabbed it and tossed it, and I don’t even know what it is until it starts flying around,” Chappel said.

Chappel said she told her roommate to wake up because there was a bat in their room.

“It was terrifying,” Chappel said. “I remember I threw my pillow at it.”

The roommates counted to five together to sprint to the door, but while they were counting to five, the bat flew over Chappel’s head.

“I jump off my lofted bed, I run to the door, [and] I get out of there,” Chappel said.

Her roommate, Seger, a first-year in environmental science, said she didn’t see the bat until Chappel started yelling and she woke up to it flying around the room.

“My first instinct was to get under the covers,” Seger said. “I called the RA on duty, and it took too long. It went through too many rings and I’m like, ‘Heck no,’ so I hung up on them, and then I went to the next number I had, which was the campus police.”

After leaving, they waited for maintenance to check their dorm and patch up the holes in their room.

Amy Chappel-Novak, mom to student Brynn Chappel, said she woke up to several missed calls one morning from her daughter the first week of school.

“I was a little disappointed because she was trying to get a hold of the RA, and the RA wasn’t answering,” Chappel-Novak said. “Some other girls heard my daughter, you know, [during] all the commotion and stuff, and someone had suggested she go to the health service center.”

Chappel-Novak said her daughter went to Thielen Student Health Center and was told to go to Mary Greeley Medical Center to get rabies shots, but she was disappointed that the Student Health Center didn’t tell them what bus line takes them to the ER.

“I mean, they’re traumatized,” Chappel-Novak said.  “They should have said, ‘Get on the red bus, it’ll take you right there.’ And the ER had even told them that, ‘we’ve had several come from ISU.’”

Chappel-Novak said she posted something on the Iowa State Parents Facebook page because she wanted to ensure the problem was being addressed.

“Nobody’s really talking about it, it was never discussed [by any] of my parent groups,” Chappel-Novak said. “And when I posted that this happened, more parents started saying, ‘Yep, this happened last year.’ I even… got a message from a parent that their son was bit. So there [were] several kids going through the rabies series at this time.”

Additionally, Chappel-Novak said she kept emailing and calling different people because she wanted the issue resolved.

“Everyone kept saying they couldn’t tell me anything,” Chappel-Novak said. “‘We can’t tell you who’s involved.’ And I wasn’t wanting to know the kids’ names or anything. I just think they were not admitting that there was a bat issue, and there clearly was.”

She said she came up for a family weekend in September and noticed a person with a bat symbol on them, and she was very happy to see that.

“It was over $14,000 for the ER visits, and we’re still getting bills,” Chappel-Novak said. “So it was just kind of frustrating because nobody was really saying that they were working on it.”

Chappel-Novak mentioned that insurance did cover a big portion of that bill, but she is working on getting Iowa State to help pay.

“I’ve got sheets and sheets of people that I’ve talked to, supervisors and directors and building maintenance and directors of residence life,” Chappel-Novak said.

Chappel-Novak listed the people she contacted in a message to the Daily:

• Residence Department
• Director of Helser Life
• Supervisor of Helser Hall
• Director of Residence Hall
• Two different building maintenance online requests
• Maintenance office
• Financial office
• Director of Thielen Student Health Center

Chappel and Seger said they had to go to four doctor visits for the rabies series. The first one included four immunizations, and the next three included one immunization each visit.

All of the shots following the first visit were done on campus.

Chappel said after the incident, she slept on the futon in their room for around a week.

“It kind of took, like, a mental toll on me personally, I lost so much sleep,” Chappel said. “I’d have to force myself to go to bed at, like, five in the morning. And sometimes I’d pull [an] all-nighter, especially the first night I went back up to the bed. It was really hard.”

Chappel said now she is able to sleep in her loft, but she wishes precautions were taken.

“I know that colleges are known for bats, so I just wish that they would have taken extra precautions because if this happened like anyone else, it [would] just be terrible because I know exactly how it feels,” Chappel said.

Seger said the day that it happened, she emailed the director of their residence hall because they didn’t know where the bat was, but she was given insight on the situation and offered alternate housing.

“They did offer us a different room if we felt uncomfortable, but actually, I felt more comfortable in our room because it was, like, the most patched-up room,” Seger said.

Seger and Chappel mentioned that the people living next to them experienced the issue and moved out due to the incident.

Meredith Ponder-Hanisch, director of communication and marketing for campus life, stated in the email that the Department of Residence makes every effort to prevent bats from entering residence halls, and this semester, there are ongoing mitigation efforts, including third-party contractors, to seal up potential entry points.

“This fall, around half of the residence halls had reports of bats in or around the building,” Ponder-Hanisch stated. “When a bat is reported to residence staff, they immediately respond to locate, remove, and test the bat as quickly as possible. The Department of Residence provides students with instructions on what to do if they see a bat as well as guidance if they were exposed.”

In the same email, Ponder-Hanisch said it is not unusual to receive reports, and they have protocols in place to respond when they receive a report.

“Again, the department makes every effort to prevent bats from entering the residence halls,” Ponder-Hanisch said. “We also ask students to do their part by ensuring the screens on their windows are properly latched at all times.”

Seger said Iowa State was accommodating to them.

“Obviously, in a perfect world, this wouldn’t have happened, but I think as much as it’s frustrating, I don’t think Iowa State really could have prevented it,” Seger said. ​​”You can’t really control wild animals. They come in when they please, and it’s not really Iowa State’s fault.”

Chappel said this was a bonding memory for her and Seger because they didn’t really know each other before they moved in.

“As traumatic as it was to deal with, afterward, like PTSD and whatnot. It is kind of, I’m gonna say it’s a fun story,” Chappel said.

Tips on how to deal with a bat problem in your home can be found here. For more information or questions on this issue, email or call the Department of Residence at [email protected] or call (515)-294-2900.