10A the university daily kansan
news
thursday, august 21. 2003
Trapped bat bites fraternity member
By Danielle Hillix
dhillix@kansan.com
Kansan staff reporter
Excitement at a fraternity house isn't unusual. But the commotion doesn't usually involve a winged mammal and a plastic bag.
An early-morning struggle with a bat sent a Kappa Sigma fraternity member to the hospital and made him a local celebrity.
The bat didn't know what it was getting into when it flew through an open window at the Kappa Sigma house, 1305 Emery Road, late Sunday night.
The bat escaped into the main house Monday morning after spending the night trapped in a res-
ident's room.
Patrick Renk, Lenexa junior, said a party at the fraternity house Monday night disturbed the bat. The animal flew through the house and ended up in the fraternity's formal room, where members tried to capture it.
"We were all swinging at it with newspapers and stuff." Renk said.
Renk trapped the bat in a plastic bag after knocking it down.
Before Renk was able to close the bag, the bat bit him on the left pinky finger. Another fraternity member then clapped the bag with his hands, subduing the animal.Kappa Sigma members took Renk and the bat to Lawrence
"The hospital said I was the only one who has ever brought a bat in with them," Renk said.
Memorial Hospital.
Renk received a rabies shot and other treatment for his wound. The bat, still alive, was boxed up and sent back home with Renk.
"I had to keep it in my room until the next day when animal control could pick it up." Renk said.
Instead of just dealing with animal control officials, Renk spent the next day with local newspaper and television reporters, who were calling to hear about the bat incident.
"I guess this doesn't happen a lot," Renk said.
When animal control did receive the bat, they euthanized it and sent it to Kansas State University. There it will be tested for rabies and other diseases. The department expects to receive test results by Friday.
Myra Strother, chief of staff at Watkins Health Center, said rabies was always a concern with animal bites.
Strother has never seen a rabies case at Watkins, but she has given many rabies vaccinations.
"Runners come in a lot with dog bites," Strother said, "but we have never had a rabies case on campus."
Edited by Jonathan Reeder
Double trouble
Eric Braem/Kansan
Armond Enclarde, Topeka graduate, and Pat Jones, Kansas City, Mo., graduate, compete in Double Shot at Take over the Beach in front of Wescoe Hall. Enclarde and Jones said they came back to KU yesterday to support their fraternities. Enclarde won the game.
BAGHDAD, Iraq — FBI agents led the search for clues in the rubble of a bombed United Nations compound in Baghdad yesterday, while U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the attack that killed his top envoy to Iraq would not drive the world body out of the country.
The Associated Press
FBI searches for clues on deadly Iraq blasts
U. N. workers were told to stay home after a cement truck packed with explosives blew up outside the offices of U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello on Tuesday. The unprecedented attack against the world body killed 20 people, including Vieira de Mello, and wounded at least 100 people.
Annan said he was to meet with the Security Council later yesterday to discuss security arrangements for U.N. workers in Iraq.
"We will persevere. We will continue. It is essential work," he said at a news conference in Stockholm, Sweden, where he stopped briefly before heading to U.N. headquarters in New York. "We will not be intimidated."
Iraq's Governing Council condemned the attack and declared three days of mourning for those who died, council member Ahmad Chalabi told reporters. The council also promised to dedicate a monument to Vieira de Mello, he added.
Council members said they believed the truck bombing was committed by members of Saddam's ousted regime with the help of militants from outside Iraq.
A cement truck detonated at the concrete wall outside the three-story Canal Hotel at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, blasting a 6-foot-deep crater in the ground, shredding the facade of the hotel housing U.N. offices and
stunning an organization that had been welcomed by many Iraqis in contrast to the U.S. led occupation forces.
U. N. officials at the headquarters had refused heavy security because the United Nations "did not want a large American presence outside," said Salim Lone, the U.N. spokesman in Baghdad
Fifteen bodies in white bags were counted by a U.N. worker at the hotel, and a survey of Baghdad hospitals by The Associated Press found five other people killed in the blast
people
Veronique Taveau, a spokeswoman for the U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator, said the U.N. figure for the dead was 17 and 100 people were wounded.
"There are so many people who are still missing," she said.
Iaveau said the United Nations had temporarily suspended operations yesterday and that travel arrangements were being made for employees wanting to leave the country. Iraqi who work for the United Nations were told to stay home. Foreign workers were directed to lodgings scattered in many small hotels around the capital.
Vieira de Mello, who had left his job as U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights to go to Iraq on temporary assignment, was meeting with other U.N. officials when the explosion struck. A news conference was also under way in the building, where 300 U.N. employees had worked.
The 55-year-old veteran diplomat from Brazil was wounded and trapped in the rubble, and workers gave him water as they tried to extricate him.
Hours later, the United Nations announced his death.
U. N. and U.S. officials called the bombing a "terrorist attack," but there was no immediate claim of responsibility.
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