OH DEER! aka Mom killed Bambi This Morning

[DGoddessChardonnay]

I knew I should've stayed home, but it's Wednesday and I go in at 6 a.m. Didn't realize it'd be Hell just getting to work in the dark . . .

Mom and I left the house at 5:40. Plenty of time to get to the Litter Box. Headed up our street and turned onto P Street. We take that all the way down west past the tv station and turn right just past the bridge.

Right after we'd turned off the bridge and went underneath Old Avenue (where the southbound lane overlaps the northbound lane) we saw a pair of deer to our right standing in front of a factory.

We're not used to seeing deer this far into the city limits, so we were cautious and managed to drive past them. We did a few seconds later hear the screech of brakes and two vehicles that were behind us had swerved and hit brakes to avoid hitting the pair, which had decided to venture out into the road. Luckily the vehicles were okay and the deer made it across the road into the woods.

Turned left at the light and took the road that goes past the textile plant and followed it to the end where we turned onto Main Road. Crossed Cone Road and were just past the E terminal and the BP station where we run into a stretch that's not well lit at night and it was still pitch black.

Next thing we knew, just as we were in sight of the last light before we reached the short block to the Litter Box, we heard and felt a THUWUMP KERPLUNK.

Clear fluid splashed over the windshield on Mom's side of the car and we felt the car raise up all at once, like we had hit something and ran over it.

We went through the light, not knowing what we hit and turned into the parking lot of a convenience store and went back to see what it was.

Just a few second later, we saw what it was: a young deer was dead in the middle of the northbound lane - pretty grisly.

We couldn't believe it. We had just avoided two and then just before we thought we were safe, we were blindsided by a third one.

Mom pulled up in front of the deer and turned on the flashers while I got out and looked at it. Let's just say it was dead. As in so dead it wasn't going to get up and go out for coffee dead. As it was in the dead center of the lane and traffic couldn't get around it, I ended up moving it over into the grass by the front legs.

Then we pulled into a day care just a few feet up the road that where the parking lot was lit somewhat and I had to get back out again to check the damage.

Front left headlight was still working, but the frame around it was gone. Side quarter panel was severely bent and the corner of it was sticking up a bit. Saw scratches and smaller denting just around the wheel well.

Great. Just what we need now. And we had just had two new front tires put on the car just last Friday afternoon . . .

Managed to get to work and Mom limped the car back home. She called me back right after 8 to tell me the damage was worse than we thought, but then when I had tried to look at it and what Ma saw when we got to the store, it was still dark outside.

She had to call my obnoxious ex to come and get the dent out enough so she could finish getting the car door open. My brother had helped her get out of the car after she'd gotten home, but she couldn't open the driver's side door all the way. She also called the police and filed a report of the incident. An officer came to the house and looked at the car - we still had some splatters of blood and deer hair imbedded into the corner at the time. Didn't take long for the office to verify what happened. There's still telltale signs on that stretch of Main Road and it looked pretty bad right after 3 when Mom was taking me home from work.

After I'd gotten off work, found out she and Ex had taken the car to a guy he knows that works on nothing but Toyotas who's not far from his house (ie, on the other side of Bumfuckt, Egypt) and the guy looked at everything and managed to pull the side panel down enough so they could raise the hood.

Luckily our radiator and everything underneath is still intact, so it could have been far worse on our little Corolla. The estimate he gave was just under $600. Turns out our insurance won't cover it, as we only have liability (car is too old for Collision or Comprehensive coverage) but the estimate he gave was far less than what we probably would have heard from a dealership.

So now we've got to get the car fixed. I did manage to take some pics after I'd gotten home from work this evening - the damage doesn't look quite as bad as this morning since they managed to get the dent out of the door and fix the panel enough so the hood could open.

I'm just glad it wasn't a person we hit . . . that would've been a bigger mess to explain. OTOH, it's too bad we couldn't claim that the deer was an uninsured motorist so the insurance company would pay to have the car fixed.

And of course my brother told my Mom that she murdered Bambi. Mom says murder is intentional, killing is . . . well, killing. So she didn't murder Bambi - she killed her.

Then we had to hear some ribbing from the next door neighbors "Bambi says 'Hi,'" no sooner than I got out of the car this evening.

I hollered back "You can keep Bambi over there."

I mean really, if Mom wanted venison that bad, she could've found a better way than hitting one with the car to get it.

[surreal20]

I was always under the impression that being runover by a deer was covered under the liability coverage.

I lived in West Virginia, and you absolutely HAVE to have liability on your care at least, bc of all the deer. It's a high percentage of drivers in WV that will hit a deer. It's inevitable. Perhaps it is just because of the area that each one lives in as to what liability will cover.

You should have told them you were unover by a deer, instead of the other way around. That way, it would have been easier to claim. At least, that's what my father told me. (he's hit at least 3 deer in his lifetime.)

[Andara Bledin]

Sorry about your car. That sucks.

My best 'animal in the road' story is when my great-aunt's car was hit by an airborne cow.

^-.-^

[LillFilly]

Poor deer. I just avoided a good sized buck the other day; he was just trotting down the road like he owned it!

Funny, I thought you had the option for additional coverage for deer; I had extra because I lived in a wooded area and that was on a 1997 toyota Rav4. Maybe it's a state-to-state thing.

What I hate is when people delibrately re-run over dead animals; hasn't their beauty and dignity been ruined enough by that point???

[Frantic Freddie]

You are extremely fortunate that the only damage is to your car & I'm glad you're OK,I don't like to see people get hurt.

The most dangerous animal in the US is the deer (1st link I grabbed,there's gov't stats,but who wants to wade thru those?)

I mean really, if Mom wanted venison that bad, she could've found a better way than hitting one with the car to get it.

Yeah,tears up too much meat that way

[42_42_42]

Hubby's uncle hit a deer once. Got out, got the thing into the bed of his pickup, drove home, hung it up on the clothesline and dressed it. They had fresh venison stew for dinner that night.

[Kaylyn]

I've hit deer twice at work, once when I first started and once a couple of weeks ago. Never hit one in my car, though...

About a year ago, I hit a raccoon in my car. This sucker was MASSIVE. I thought I straddled him but apparently he was too big to straddle. He wound up denting in my radiator and AC compressor. I didn't realize how bad the damage was until several miles down the road I got an overheat warning. Pulled over immediately, saw the coolant reservoir was empty, so we grabbed some bottles of water and started filling it, only to hear the water trickling out underneath the car. I kind of scooted underneath to see if I could see what was going on.

And I laid in a fire ant bed.

I had fire ants in my HAIR. It was awful.

Luckily we were within visual distance of a church that had just let out. The youth minister, I think, was watching us to see if we were ok. We pushed the car to their parking lot and got a ride home with them.

Total repairs to the car: over $1,000. But, car is still under payments, so we're still on full coverage; only had to pay $100 out of pocket as it was considered road hazard, not collision.

[mharbourgirl]

Hubby's uncle hit a deer once. Got out, got the thing into the bed of his pickup, drove home, hung it up on the clothesline and dressed it. They had fresh venison stew for dinner that night.

Hey, that was last fall on my way to work! So that was YOUR uncle driving the pickup, was it? Wow, small world.

Though actually it was the car ahead of the pickup that got blindsided by a deer flying up out of the woods. They kept driving, truck whipped over to the side of the road, driver and passenger jumped out, threw the deer in the bed and booked it back down the highway.

My MIL was traveling with me, and she was pissed that someone else had got to it before she could.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Sorry about your car. That sucks.

My best 'animal in the road' story is when my great-aunt's car was hit by an airborne cow.

^-.-^

An airborne cow? I've never heard tell of that happening.

Care to share the details? I'm curious.

[Jay 2K Winger]

An airborne cow? I've never heard tell of that happening.

Care to share the details? I'm curious.

My guess? Tornado.

[bhskittykatt]

I've learned to always look for the second baby deer. Once, I saw a mama and baby cross the road, and when I thought it was safe, a second baby bolted out. Fortunately, I just bumped it, and it bounded off.

Now, whenever I see a doe and fawn, I wait around for the second fawn. Hubby always says, "Why aren't we going yet?", and then there it is! 9 times out of 10, there's a second one hiding somewhere.

On an aside, the other day we saw a doe and two fawns, and the "second one" was limping badly. Hubby said, "You know, that mama deer is going to abandoned that limping one eventually and it's going to die, right?" Me:

[Andara Bledin]

An airborne cow? I've never heard tell of that happening.

Care to share the details? I'm curious.

My guess? Tornado.

This was in Vermont, so no, no tornado. No wind of any sort, actually.

But there was a semi coming from the other direction, which had hit the cow that had managed to wander out of it's pasture and into the road.

The semi had enough mass to send the cow sailing to land atop the hood of the car my relatives had been in. Crushed the engine compartment, of course. They were lucky that nobody was hurt, either from the cow itself, or the sudden impact of it landing.

^-.-^

[Kogarashi]

I've hit a deer once. My sister and I were out delivering papers for my parents, and since it was the weekly coupon mailer instead of actual newspapers, we could do it anytime during the day. We chose evening.

The route was long enough that toward the end, it was getting pretty dark out. We were driving along this one windy, heavily wooded road, going slow enough in case there were country pedestrians (no sidewalks, after all). Suddenly this huge deer leaps out of the trees to my right, jumps right in front of me as I scream and hit the brakes, goes flying over the hood of my car to land in the oncoming lane, then gets up and leaps off into the trees to my left.

My sister had screamed too, and we both sat there for a bit catching our breath before driving home. By some miracle, there wasn't a single dent from the deer.

[BrenDAnn]

Deer and my family have a long love/hate relationship. I once had one hit me--no really, it did. It came out of nowhere and hit my driver's side, then disappeared. Most recently, my dad hit 2 within 18 days of each other, on the same stretch of road! The first was in his big black GMC Sierra pickup. While that was being repaired, he drove my sister-in-law's Ford Taurus, and hit the second deer with it! My brother's response, of course since he's a hunter, was to ask Dad why he didn't go find the deer and bring them home for meat! Ha! Then, not even three weeks later, my sister and her hubby hit a deer in her car, on the Interstate! So yeah...Deer and my family don't get along! Glad your mom's car was pretty much okay!

[AccountingDrone]

25 pound tom turkey. Something flushed it out of the brush by the side of the road into my right side windscreen and then it bounced off and flapped off into the brush on the other side of the damned road.

*sigh*