Jeffrey Smith never expected a deer to crash into his classroom and charge him during one of his lectures.

“My students said they have never seen anyone jump that fast,” said the broadcast and cinematic arts instructor. “I just tried to get out of its way.”

A doe charged into Moore Hall room 111, located on the north side of the building, around 11 a.m. Thursday, July 3.

Smith was teaching BCA 510: Broadcast and Cable Law with 23 students when a deer jumped through the first floor window. It shattered glass all over the class.

The deer was contained in the classroom for around 30 seconds because the door was closed.

“A couple of students jumped out the window because they were scared,” Smith said.

One student suffered an arm injury from escaping through the window.

Smith said all the other students moved to the back corner of the room, and the deer moved away from the door.

Cheboygan senior Nicholas Blaskowski was anticipating his Fourth of July weekend during the lecture when he heard a crash from behind the projection screen.

“I heard the crash and the adrenaline kind of kicked in – I didn’t know what to do,” he said. “I felt my heart start to beat, and I didn’t really move but most of my class jumped up.”

Blaskowski said at first the doe was hidden behind the screen.

“Once I saw it, it was running around like it really wanted to kill somebody,” he said. “When I saw that it was just a little deer I kind of wasn’t as scared as I initially was.”

Because the doe was contained in the classroom, Smith waited for the deer to move away from the door and he opened it, encouraging the deer to walk into the hall.

Bystanders who had heard the crash ushered the deer outside through the west entrance. Smith guessed the doe was inside Moore Hall for less than two minutes.

“It seemed like hours,” he said.

However, this was not the first time Blaskowski has seen a deer inside a building.

“That’s actually happened in our high school, it ran down through the hall of the school,” he said.

CMU Police Officer Alan McArthur said the deer headed south out of the building and was last seen crossing Broomfield Road.

“We are not going to continue to look for the deer,” McArthur said.

“The evidence at the scene suggested only minor injuries to the deer.”

Smith said the deer was bleeding and seemed disoriented, but could not tell if it was rabid.

Moore Hall is currently installing new windows, but the first floor still had not received the replacements.

Brad Swanson, associate professor of Biology, guessed construction may have prompted the doe to jump.

“If there was construction around there, then it might have just gotten scared; it probably didn’t know there was glass there and just saw an escape route,” he said.

Others theorize the doe saw its reflection and charged the window. However, Swanson disagrees.

“I wouldn’t think that’s something it would be doing because females are not exceptionally territorial,” he said.

McArthur said because Central Michigan University is located in a rural area and the campus landscape includes many plants and flowers, it is not uncommon for wildlife to be seen at night.

“I recall in the past we have had some other encounters,” he said.

Blaskowski said the class is still taught in Moore 111, and the window has been boarded up.

“They had to replace the whole PowerPoint screen because there was a big spot of blood running down it,” he said.

Blaskowski said he spent the whole Fourth of July weekend telling the story to his family.

“I must have told it like 30 times,” he said.

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