Posted on 02/04/2013 4:08:45 PM PST by afraidfortherepublic
Alexis Vaughan, 17, slouched in the passenger seat of her dad’s Excursion, wishing fervently she were still in bed. Alexis was grounded, and the early Saturday morning wake-up callto run errands with her father, Michael, was part of the punishment. She stared glumly out the window at the Preston, Idaho, cornfields.
A seasoned hunter, Alexis let her eyes lazily scan the landscape for wildlife. Still, she was startled when a deer came into view about 200 yards in front of them, just a few feet off the road. Mule deer never appeared in plain sight ten days before hunting season. “Dad, there’s a deer there!” Alexis said, rolling down the window for a better look. It was a three-point buck—a male deer with sharp, three-pronged antlers on each side of its head.
As the car moved closer, Alexis saw that the deer’s head was bent toward the ground. Then she heard a scream. A few seconds later, she saw an arm fly up near the deer’s head. Alexis realized the buck was attacking a woman. Sue Panter, a 44-year-old mother of four, had been out for her morning run. The buck had emerged from the tall corn and begun following her. Having lived in rural Idaho for years, Sue knew that most deer got spooked by humans. But this deer edged closer, even when she pelted it with a handful of gravel.
“I knew I was in trouble,” she says.
Panter went to pick up a log to use for self-defense, and the buck charged. It hoisted her with its antlers and tossed her into the air. Sue could feel the horns puncture her thigh and blood seep down her leg. Within seconds, the deer had pushed her off the road and into the cornfield.
When the Vaughans pulled up, the buck was tossing Sue like a rag doll. Alexis looked into the woman’s terrified eyes, and before her father had even stopped the car, the five-four, 104-pound teenager bolted out of the car and down the slope toward the buck. “I was kicking and punching it to get its attention,” she says. The animal was undeterred by the pounding. Then Michael, who had followed his daughter, wrestled the buck away from the women by the antlers.
Alexis helped Sue up the slope and into the Vaughans’ car, then applied a tourniquet to Sue’s right thigh. Her neck was gashed; her legs were covered with puncture wounds. “We’re going to get you to a hospital,” Alexis said. Then she heard her father holler. Michael had been knocked to the ground, his right calf speared by the buck. Alexis grabbed a hammer from the car and ran to where Michael lay on his back in the dirt. She beat the buck’s head and neck, but the blows didn’t faze it. “I was losing faith,” she says. Standing over her father, Alexis could see that he was struggling to breathe.
“A couple more strikes, Lex,” said Michael. “You can do it.” Turning the hammer around, Alexis squeezed her eyes shut and took a whack at the deer’s neck with the claw end. When she opened her eyes, the deer was running away.
Alexis got in the driver’s seat and sped toward the hospital in Franklin, hearing her dad’s breathing grow ragged and watching the blood from his wounded leg seep through the T-shirt he’d wrapped around it. In the backseat, Sue looked hardly conscious. Still, she told the girl, “Take a deep breath. You saved us.”
After doctors treated Sue and Michael, Sue tearfully thanked her rescuers. “You expect a teenage girl to get on the phone and call for help,” she says, “not to beat up a deer.”
Because they all have the date marked on their calendars.
Sue could feel the horns puncture her thigh
The deer was playing a musical horn or had a car horn on him?
Is the girl still grounded?
In northern California we just count one side also.
I have always been warned to stay away from bucks during mating season. I only see them during the Fall in my backyard, otherwise it’s all does and fawns.
I have heard of quite a few deer attacks. Here is a video of one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNGGbozilko
***Methinks 3 prongs on EACH side is a 6 point buck, not a 3 point buck.****
Eastern count or Western count. I get them mixed up!
***Great, now they’ll tell us we don’t need firearms after all.***
Good thing she didn’t kill the deer. She could have been charged with taking deer out of season, using a non approved weapon, hunting from a road, hunting from a vehicle, allowing wounded game to escape.
Fargo? Grand Forks? Moorhead is my old homestead. Thinking about returning after more than 40 years in the warmer climes...
You beat me to it, LOL!
***In Preston ID, some other people use their hands to kill deer:****
Back in 1968, some anti-gun professor claimed to hunt without guns and said he had strangled a badger with his bare hands.
The interviewer noticed he had NO scars from the badger hunt.
Don’t tell anybody but I used to tease my Minnesota friends that when they secretly measured their, um, personal antler they had to measure up three inches on one side and down three on the other in order to get six!
It's very rare but it does happen. I've never heard of a buck attacking a jogger but I have heard them attacking a hunter that was antler rattling.
Was that an assault hammer?
Was it properly registered?
When they snort like a bull, I back off.
No one had a gun?
I guess some hunters don’t appreciate the value of firarms for self defense or the defense of a third party.
Out in the Rockies they only describe a buck deer or a bull elk by the points on one of its antlers. Why? I have no idea. I’ve always just accepted it. Although I have taken the liberty of describing a buck or a bull, even out there, by how many points are on each side, e,g., a 4 X 4 mule deer or a 6 X 6 bull elk, for instance. FWIW.
If that works the same for moving violations, then I may I only be pulled over Out West...
;-)
Totally off topic— while I would never pay for a vanity plate, I have toyed around with what I would put on one if I did. Top choices are:
PNTLSS
LTHLWPN
And, for my mom:
DRGNLDY (her idea)
GLT TRP (my idea)
For that annoying co-worker:
BGUPBUT
“I’m guessing she was “ungrounded” by noon. “
:-)
LOL. It is all clear now.
One year while bow hunting for elk, we parked our ATVs by some trees and continued to hike up the hill. When we were approx 300 yards away from our machines we turned and watched a doe that came upon our machines, start to snort and striking at the ATVs with her front leg. She never connected which was lucky for her.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.