Broken glass and blood spatters covered a section of the bleachers at Nickerson Field after four students, including some from Boston University, entered the press box and shattered several windows early yesterday morning, according to one of the students involved in the incident.
The injured students dripped blood from the press box into the Sleeper Hall lobby, the elevator and the 11th floor as they tried to get help, according to an Office of Residence Life incident report obtained by The Daily Free Press.
College of Arts and Sciences freshman Patrick Degraff, 19, said he was one of four students who jumped over the brick wall surrounding the field and entered the press box around 3 a.m.
Degraff said the students, some of whom he had met earlier that night on Ashford Street, had been drinking “a little bit” before they accidentally broke the windows.
“I don’t think [drinking] had anything to do with it,” he said. “It was such a long time afterwards.
“We were bored,” he added. “We noticed there were chairs in there, and we wanted to sit down.”
The students did not check to see if the gate to the field was open before going over the fence, but Degraff said the gate surrounding the press box was wide open.
The students initially entered the press box to sit, but then started “rough housing, and it went too far,” he said.
Degraff said he hit one of the windows with his elbow and broke the glass.
“Myself and a few of my friends were horsing around,” he said. “It kind of got a little out of control. It was surprisingly easy [to break].”
Immediately after breaking the windows, Degraff and Washington and Lee University freshman Clay Pennington, both injured and bleeding profusely, realized they needed help and went to Degraff’s residence – Sleeper Hall, Degraff said.
Degraff said he thought the other two students involved, who did not sustain injuries, were from BU, but he was not sure.
Degraff said he is concerned about administrative punishment following the incident.
The report stated a resident assistant found Degraff and Pennington in the 11th floor men’s bathroom “bleeding profusely from deep gashes in their arms.”
Four other students were in the bathroom with Degraff and Pennington, and one was trying to help Degraff with his injuries, the report stated. Degraff and Pennington “expressed reluctance” when the RA told them he would call the BU Police Department, according to the report.
Degraff told the RA he sustained his injuries because they “walked into a door,” but Degraff later told police he got hurt “from smashing his arm through the window of the Press Box at Nickerson Field,” the incident report stated.
West Campus residents said they noticed a trail of blood from the entrance to Sleeper Hall leading to and inside the elevators.
“I noticed there was blood flooded all over the downstairs [early that morning],” CAS freshman Alex Vasile said. “The elevator also had blood in it.”
Degraff and Pennington were taken by ambulance to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, according to the report.
Degraff sustained three cuts that needed stitches on his right arm, and Pennington may have torn a muscle in his arm from the incident, Degraff said.
BU custodian Luis Barbosa, who swept up broken glass on the bleachers at the field Sunday afternoon, said there was “a lot of blood” around the scene.
BUPD Sgt. Jack St. Hilaire said the department could not comment on the incident.
Clarissa Bottesini contributed reporting for this article.