I hit a deer. It’s kind a regular out these parts. Pow! It was there. Then, pow!, it went flying over the top of my car. I stopped to check for car damage. Then, drove to the nearest gas station to call in the accident and await further instructions. Nowadays, you’d probably can call the accident in with a cell phone. Anyway, I was told I could drive the car home and have it inspected the next day, or have the car towed from that place to a nearby garage. I drove the car home, and it was totaled the next day. Oh do you not see that it’s a deer? Yes, it was a split second, but it gets your attention.
Shortly after I moved to south Louisiana, I was riding in a car with a coworker who pointed out the proliferation of road-kill armadillo decorating the roadway. He said, "I bet you don't see anything like that up north." I told him in my native western PA, it wasn't exactly like that, because it was deer instead of armadillo.
He thought I was kidding.
I was up in Maine some years ago, and was driving my car back from Acadia National Park one night, and...a deer appeared in my headlights out of nowhere, as if it were teleported right there in front of my car.
I had a vision of the “Deer in the headlights” look for a split second before impact. A nanosecond slice of time that left a Polaroid snapshot in my brain.
The deer went flying off the road and into the woods, and the bumper of my car was caved in but not otherwise seriously damaged.
We walked over and peeked into the woods, but no sign could be seen of the deer.
When we were talking about it, I said that it happened so fast, and I said I had heard someone in the car involuntarily yell out “Arrrrrrrrrrghhhhhh!”
They all turned and stared at me, and said “That was YOU!”