That's the least graphic photo in the set - the passenger side pic shows all the guts. Weird, though - not a scratch on the Dodge's grille, bumper or headlights. The deer must've been hit mid-leap.
Posted on 04/07/2010 9:01:29 PM PDT by cmj328
FREMONT – As a firefighter and paramedic, Roy Olsen thought he'd seen it all.
That was until the severed head of a pregnant deer crashed through his windshield Tuesday night, leaving him covered in glass and guts.
"The head was sitting in the passenger's seat," the 42-year-old Fremont man said Wednesday.
The bizarre accident happened around 7:30 p.m. when Olsen was driving a Jeep Grand Cherokee north on Route 125 in Brentwood. He was on his way to buy dog food at the Epping Walmart when he said he spotted a deer run across the road in front of a truck that was in front of him.
Olsen said he believes that deer made it across the highway, but then, out of nowhere, a head came flying at him. He believes it came from a second deer that was hit by a car traveling south on the highway.
"The next thing I knew, my windshield shattered and I took a direct hit in the face and chest. The head came into the vehicle," said Olsen, a full-time firefighter and paramedic with the Hollis Fire Department.
Andrew Lichtenwalner, 41, of Nottingham, said he struck the deer with his Toyota Corolla. He jammed on his brakes after hitting the deer and saw the deer go airborne.
It's not exactly clear how the deer became decapitated, but Lichtenwalner said it appeared that the head was cut off when the deer struck the side of Olsen's vehicle in the opposite lane, he said.
After he pulled over, Lichtenwalner said he walked over and saw what was left of the deer in the road.
"I said, 'Where's the head?' It was laying in the middle of 125, headless," said Lichtenwalner, who was on his way to Merrimac, Mass., to watch the Red Sox game with a friend. Someone told him the head was in Olsen's vehicle.
Lichtenwalner was shocked when he caught his first glimpse of Olsen covered in the deer's blood.
"It looked like somebody poured a five-gallon bucket of blood over his head," he said.
When it hit the windshield, Olsen said he could feel parts of the deer wrapping around his head. The vehicle looked like something had been "massacred inside of it," he said.
Olsen was dazed after the accident, but he managed to get out of his vehicle as passers-by stopped to help.
He suffered broken bones in his left hand, lacerations from the pieces of glass, and contusions to his chest.
It was difficult to assess the extent of his injuries at first, because his face was covered in deer guts, he said.
Like Lichtenwalner, Olsen's wife, Kelli, was stunned when she arrived a short time later and saw her husband.
"He looked like he came out of a horror movie," she said.
Lichtenwalner escaped injury, but his car was heavily damaged.
Olsen moved to New Hampshire from Florida in 2004 and said he was warned to watch out for deer when he arrived.
This was his first encounter with a deer, and he hopes it's his last.
"I was told by all the paramedics that I'm a lucky man, so I have to believe I'm a lucky man," he said, looking at his left arm in a bandage. "Somebody was looking out for me."
I have a friend who hit a horse that rolled over the hood of her car and came through her windshield (a big freaking horse at that)!
I once had a deer’s head in my passenger seat. Worst garage sale purchase of my life!
He must have refused an offer he couldn’t refuse.
“Vinnie, you idiot, I said a horses head, not a deer!”
Five seconds!
Friend of mine hit an elk a few years ago. Partially came through the windshield. It was nasty, but he was ok.
That sounds like a typical Mi. road hazard around here.Car vs deer happen all of the time.
“I once had a deer’s head in my passenger seat. Worst garage sale purchase of my life!”
I did the same thing, $10 bucks. A couple of months later someone told me about a guy with a new bar that was looking for a deer head to hang on the wall. Got $100 bucks for it.
Got $100 bucks for it
You da man!
Especially when the grass on the side of the roads start sprouting up in the Spring.
We drove home from Little Rock one night around midnight and counted hundreds of deer standing on the side of the highway just at the edge of the trees eating away. You just never know when they are going to leap out and try to cross the road!
I hit a cow once. There were snowbanks and the critter had gone over the fence. I was only going around 20 mph. The car spun and the front smashed in. The cow fell down, got up and walked back into the field. I called the rancher and told him. He could never identify which cow had been hit, but my car was a mess.
Thirty couple years ago I hit a pig in the fog down by Ocala. Killed the pig. Just bent the front rim on my Honda CB500 a little and added some scratches to the paint job and to me. The highway patrol sent a van out to get it that looked like it was rigged inside to butcher a hog.
1) Pennsylvania
2) Michigan
3) Illinois
4) Ohio
5) Georgia
6) Minnesota
7) Virginia,, HUH?
8) Indiana
9) Texas
10) Wisconsin
I can't imagine the stats have changed much for 2009.
/Salute
We have a new million dollar unfinished project that is supposed to warn drivers when deer walk across the road in a one mile stretch of highway. After they installed all the fancy poles and sensors, they never did activate it. I guess the state ran out of money.
The state is a laughing stock to locals. They wasted all that money on foolishness while the county is experiencing a 20% unemployment rate.
That's the least graphic photo in the set - the passenger side pic shows all the guts. Weird, though - not a scratch on the Dodge's grille, bumper or headlights. The deer must've been hit mid-leap.
This almost happened to me a few weeks ago.
I was driving on the highway doing about 45 in a 50 MPH zone and a big deer, his whole body was above the hood line and if I clipped him, I might have been a goner.
Out of nowhere this huge deer was in front of my car, luckily I wasn’t switching radio stations, I had a split second to tap the brakes and for an instant his whole body was right in front of the car, how I didn’t hit him I’ll never know. It seemed almost impossible for him to be in front of the car seemingly within inches of the car and no contact. If I didn’t tap the brakes I would have had a face full of huge deer at almost 50 MPH.
Not only are the mountain forests packed with them, but there are lots of tight turns where your headlights don't point in the direction you're going, giving the bastids plenty of opportunity to get in your way.
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