Scoop
Lieutenant Junior Grade
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2002
- Messages
- 1,158
This is an old story. It happened to me around 1994 outside Janesville, Wisconsin. Long story, but hang on it involves guns. Everything down to what was said is absolutely true and not exagerated.<br /><br />I owned a 1969 buick skylark. Good running car, but not worth a lot. One day at work, I noticed my radiator had sprung a leak. I called my parents to come help me out since I had to work all day. I pulled the radiator and they took it to get fixed.<br /><br />I got a ride home that night. When I went to bed, I noticed the bed was cold. Crap, the water bed heater had gone out.<br /><br />The next day after work, my parents brought the repaired radiator back to me. I installed it and decided I would drive the 40 miles to get a new water bed heater.<br /><br />I followed my parents for 35 miles at which point they turned off to go to their house. A mile and a half later with a car coming the other way, a deer crosses my path at a dead run. I don't have a chance. I slam into the deer going around 60 miles an hour, then time slows down like it does in emergency situations. All the lights in the car immediately burn out, the stuff on the seat beside me hits the floor, the hood pops up, the radiator is crushed like a egg and spills anti-freeze all over the road. I have the brakes on full, but am skidding on the anti-freeze which is very slick. I see the deer on top of the engine through the crack under the hood. The deer gets up off the hood while I am still skidding. Finally I get the car stopped and the hood slams down (The hood springs came off and I only found one).<br /><br />I am about 5 miles from the nearest town out in the country. I get out of the car and see the deer dead in the middle of the other lane. It is in rough shape. A couple broken legs, no hair on some of its body. I grab a leg and drag it off the other side of the road so no one will hit it or have to swerve out of the way causing a second accident.<br /><br />The car going the other way stops and comes back. The guy is very excited. I think he must have had some adrenaline flowing too. The first word out of his mouth are "wow, all I could see is deer hair flying everywhere." He asks if I'm ok and and if the deer is dead. I told him I was ok an that I the deer is dead. He gets a flashlight out of his truck and says he wants to see the deer. We go over and he shines the flashlight on the deer. At that point, the deer comes to and tries to run. There is this horrible sloshing sound coming from inside the deer. We each look for something to use to put the deer out if its misery. Neither of us have a knife or anything. The guys asks if there is anything he can do for me. I ask him to find a a phone, call the county sheriff's office to report the accident and call my parents so I can get a ride home.<br /><br />I wait for a while. Finally a county sheriff pulls up with coming from the other direction with the lights going. The female sheriff stops and rolls down her window. The first thing she asks is what happened. I say I hit a deer. She says is it dead? I tell her no. She says Sh*t and pulls her cruiser up behind me. <br /><br />She pulls out a flashlight and we go over to see the deer. She shines the light on the deer and it tries to run making the sloshing noise again. She says, we'll have to shoot it. She pulls out her revolver, holds it out to me and says, "you shoot it." Obviously at this point I am shocked. I told her, "no, you shoot it." She says "no you shoot it your a better shot than me." Having never fired more than a pellet gun before, I refuse again wondering how she knows what type of shot I am. She finally accepts her duty.<br /><br />She asks me where to shoot it. I tell her, "shoot it in the head." I figured, the deer isn't moving and it would be dead instantly. She repsonds, "Can't I shoot it in the lungs?" Remembering seeing an elk shot in the lungs and how long it took to die, I tell her "No, shoot it in the head." Now using a whining tone, she asks "Can't I shoot it in the lungs?" Again, I say no and tell her "it will die faster if you shoot it in the head." She finally relents. She waits for a couple cars to go by, holds the gun out and pulls the trigger. I see a spot of gravel next to the deer become a patch of earth with no gravel on it anymore. The deer was not hit and starts to slosh again which makes the officer even more upset. I ask her what happened. She says, "I closed my eyes." At this point she again tries to get me to take the revolver and shoot the deer. Again, I refuse. She then asks "where should I shoot it?" Again I say the head and she starts whining about wanting to shoot it in the lungs. After a couple times around, she agrees to shoot it in the head. She holds the gun out again and bang. This time she hits the deer, but not in the head. She hit the deer in the jugular. Now there is a thumb size fountain of blood shooting in the air and the deer is sloshing again tring to run with broken legs flopping everywhere. At this point the officer freaks out and starts saying "What should I do? What should I do?". I calmly tell her that she has two choices, "Either shoot it in the head or just wait about three minutes and it will be dead." She still is freaking out saying "What should I do? What should I do?" I grab her by the arm and lead her across the road stating that the deer with be dead in a couple of minutes.<br /><br />She puts her gun away, opens the back door of the cruiser and tells me to have a seat. She closes the door locking me in business end of the car. She gets her clip board and asks me what happened. I tell her I was driving along and this deer runs out in front of me at full speed and I hit it. She says (and I quote!!!) "I don't believe you." Knowing she saw my car totalled, the 50 yards of anti-freeze trail with skidding tires marks through the middle, I say "what don't you believe." She says "If you hit the deer, then how did it get way over there?" I told her the deer ended up in the middle of the other lane and that I grabbed it leg and dragged it out of the other lane so no one else would get into an accident. She said "oh."<br /><br />At this point, a call comes on the police radio asking if the officer has a "Scoop" (ok, they used my real name) in the car. She confirms my name and says yes. He says "good, his parents have been looking all over for him." (It seems the guy called my parents, and left a message that their son was in an accident, but nothing else. They called all the hospitals and police stations until they found the right one with the right son.) The Sheriff dispatcher tells my parents where I am so they can come and pick me up. I ask then to call a tow truck that is covered by my auto club since it is the days before cell phones were small and affordable.<br /><br />The deputy then asks me some more routine questions like, full name license, and she runs a warrant check. I come back clean. She asks if I want the deer. Figuring that I have no way to get the deer home, it is bloody and all the meat is probably like jelly, I tell her no.<br /><br />The tow truck driver comes and hooks my car up. My parents arrive, make sure I am alright and relay the story of the answering machine message stating only that a son was in an accident. The tow truck driver asks me if I am going to take the deer. I tell him no so he asks if he can have it. I say sure and go back to deputy to ask for a deer tag. She gets this snotty tone and says "I thought you didn't want the deer." I tell her I changed my mind. She reluctantly gives me a tag. The tow truck driver asks me if I can help him load the deer onto his truck. I say sure. It is a pretty big deer. My dad said 150# pounds, I say 130# but it could have been more.<br />While loading the deer, the blood from the jugular gets all over my pants, but the deer is loaded. The tow truck driver drives off. I sign the paperwork for the deputy. I ask my parents if they can take me to the waterbed store to get the heater since you really cannot sleep on a waterbed without a heater. They aggree.<br /><br />We drive to the store and it is about 5 minutes before closing. I walk in with my messy hair and blood all over my pants and ask to use the phone. With stunned looks, the people say yes and point to the phone. I call my wife and let her know that I had hit a deer and that my parents would be bringing me home. My wife gets upset that I called my parents first instead of her even though I was at least 35 miles from home at this point and only 15 miles from my parents house. I buy the water bed heater and get dropped off at my house. I install the heater and call it a night. <br /><br />A night to remember for sure.
