Raccoon falls through ceiling into packed LSU dining hall

Raccoon falls through ceiling into packed LSU dining hall

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A raccoon fell through the ceiling into a packed dining hall at Louisiana State University as students screamed and a cook tried to catch it in a basket.

Freshman Danielle Gipson told The Reveille student newspaper that everyone was standing up and looking around for a raccoon when she went into the 459 Dining Hall for dinner Wednesday.

“I went and still got my food because I thought that it was fake,” she said. “The raccoon then ran underneath my table and I immediately got on top of the chair.”

One video posted with the article showed the raccoon running between tables, then climbing onto a chair and looking around. Another shows people chasing it with a broom and a stick or perhaps two brooms. Screams are all that can be heard on either.

Gipson says she lost her appetite when friends told her the raccoon had been on top of her bag while she was gone.

“I am just scared that my bag has a disease,” she said. “Right now it’s funny to look back at, but at the moment, I was traumatized. My appetite is definitely gone.”

One of her friends, freshman Hannah Accius, said students got the raccoon into an area where it couldn’t run out.

“The raccoon was making its way toward me. It stopped and climbed onto my friend Danielle’s bag. Animal Control finally came and tried to catch it in a trash can. A cook even tried to use a basket to catch it. It was a mess,” she said.

Eventually, she said, it was caught.