A 19-year-old Casper College student died Tuesday of bacterial meningitis, local Health Department officials said Thursday.

Erin Reed of Douglas was a resident of Morad Hall, a dormitory at the college.

College officials Thursday were dispensing the antibiotic Cipro to fellow dormitory residents and others who may have had contact with Reed, who died at an apartment off campus.

The mood at Morad Hall was somber as students lined up to swallow the antibiotics for bacterial meningitis - an infection that can cause fatal severe swelling of the brain and spinal cord or a serious blood infection

City of Casper-Natrona County Health Department workers set up tables with paperwork, informational packets, cups of water and Cipro pills while students waited to receive a short-term fix for any possible cases of the infection.

Angela Freeman is a resident assistant for Morad Hall, where Reed lived on the second floor. She said the week's events had been stressful. She was alerted that something was wrong and was told to knock on Reed's door, she said. It was unclear what day she was alerted.

When no one answered, she said security was called to open the room to make sure Reed was not there - but the room was empty.

"We didn't know until the next morning," she said. "From what I heard, I believe she passed away alone at her boyfriend's home somewhere in town."

While no other cases have been reported, the County Health Department is taking the precautionary measure of offering the antibiotic Cipro to each student in Morad Hall, as well as any students or staff who may have had contact with Reed.

The drug does not prevent future cases of meningitis, but if someone has the bacteria in their body, the pill will kill it, Health Department spokesman Marty Thone said.

"We're not in a panic mode, but we're being proactive to make sure no other students get it," said Lisa Icenogle, the college's information coordinator.

Thone said a team of epidemiology investigators is questioning Reed's family and boyfriend to try to determine who Reed may have been in contact with before she died.

"We want to provide those people with the antibiotics, but also our goal is to trace back where she got infected," Thone said.

Casper College distributed informational fliers about the infection to each of the dorm's 97 students. Administrators were on hand to explain the situation to the residents.

But most of the students had heard about the death of their fellow dorm-mate from classmates, staff and friends, said freshman Kendra Schifferns, 18, who also lives in Morad Hall.

Jessica Sinclair, 19, lived in the same hall with Reed, and said that before this week, she was not really aware of bacterial meningitis.

"It's scary, because she's so young and it can happen so quickly," she said.

Freeman said Reed's death hit hard. "They're my girls and my responsibility, she was one of my girls," she said. "She was so young - I think it hit home to a lot of people here."

Freeman said she was keeping an eye out for any signs of depression among the girls on her floor, and Icenogle recommended that any students dealing with grief or anxiety seek help from the college's counselors.

Most of the students in Morad Hall, while shaken by the death of their fellow student, remained calm about the infection itself.

"They said she didn't live here that much because she spent so much time with her boyfriend, so I'm not too worried about it," said Schifferns.

Thone said the department did a media campaign in September to educate parents about the meningitis vaccine if they had children going to college. The vaccine is provided for $75 and protects against four of the five strains of the disease.

"I got an e-mail (about meningitis) a couple weeks before I came to school but I kind of blew it off because I didn't think it would happen," Schifferns said.

Thone said many colleges make the vaccine for bacterial meningitis mandatory.

Casper College does not, but that might change in the future.

"To my knowledge, this is the first case of the infection on campus," Icenogle said, adding that making the vaccine mandatory "would certainly be something we would want to look into."