A Kentucky woman who said she suffered more than 250 bedbug bites while staying at UW campus lodging three years ago sued the UW System on Friday, seeking compensation for medical expenses and her emotional toll.

Kena J. Samuels-Stith, an accountant and consultant from Louisville, Ky., attended a UW-Extension business management seminar in June 2007 and stayed at Lowell Inn and Conference Center, 610 Langdon St., when she was attacked by bedbugs, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in Dane County Circuit Court.

The 250 bites she received covered 85 percent of her body, Samuels-Stith wrote in a statement attached to the lawsuit.

In addition to the UW System and UW Board of Regents, the lawsuit also names System President Kevin Reilly, Extension Chancellor David Wilson and Lowell Inn manager Joseph Way as defendants.

UW System spokesman David Giroux said Friday that the university would take a close look at the lawsuit when it receives it.

Samuels-Stith did not return a call Friday. But in a notice of claim she filed with the state attorney general in October 2007, she wrote that she awoke during the early morning of June 13 to feel pricking on her forehead and found small bugs on her pillow, face and arms.

"In a full-fledged panic, I began to cry and scream for assistance," she wrote.

The attendant at the front desk told her she could not leave her post to help, Samuels-Stith wrote. She managed to get colleagues and the seminar facilitator to help pack and move her belongings.

The next day, she wrote, she became increasingly uncomfortable and itchy, and was taken by a colleague to a hospital where she was given a prescription medication and told to see her doctor when she returned home.

Samuels-Stith wrote that Way promised her reimbursement for her medical expenses but she has received none.

Samuels-Stith's attorney, Gard Strother, said the lawsuit was filed Friday to beat the three-year statute of limitations.