Deer vs Car? Who Wins?

Like is full of peaks and valleys.  You have to experience the bad so that you can appreciate the good.  Right now I seem to be in the valley, taking a few hits from life.  Literally.

I was coming home Friday night around 6:30 in the evening.  As you all know, it's freakin' dark by then.  I was on North Ridge Road in Amherst heading towards Oberlin Avenue from Leavitt. 

I've been on that road before, probably quite a few times but rarely in the dark.  I'm a little familiar with that road but not in the dark.  As I was heading towards Oberlin Avenue, a car coming at me was blinking their high beams at me.  That tells me that something is up ahead to watch out for, usually a police car watching for speeders.

I'm not a speeder.  I had one speeding ticket in my life and that was an expensive lesson to never do that again.  Plus, with my phobias, I hate being in the car anyway. I'm trying to get from point A to point B alive so speeding is not usually something I am willing to do.  So, I saw the flashing high beams and thought fine, I'm not speeding, I don't care.  Well, I guess they were warning us about something but it wasn't the police.

Suddenly, BAM!  There was a deer hitting into my car by my driver's window.  She ROCKED my car and scared the crap out of me.  I slammed on my brakes and came to a stop in the middle of North Ridge Road.  I was frozen, I had no idea what to do.  I never saw her coming until she was right at my window.  I never saw her.

The car that was directly behind me came slowly up next to me, then turned right in front of me into a driveway.  I thought OH!  That was a good idea, so I pulled into this driveway next to him to get out of traffic.  The rest of the drivers proceeded through slowly.

The guy that stopped was named Randy and I definitely owe him big time.  I don't do well in stressful situations and I was shaking, my heart was pounding in my chest and I was in a panic.  He came right up to me, put an arm around my shoulder and just talked to me.  He made sure I was ok (I was) then just held my hand until I could get my breath back and get my thoughts together. 

Randy checked out my car for me to assess the damage.  The driver's side mirror is broken.  It's sort of attached to the car but not by much.   From there the deer went forward and crashed into the fender that goes from the driver's door to the front bumper.  Originally, the fender was up against my tire.  Randy was nice enough to pull that out by hand so that at least my car is still drivable.

In the dark, he checked out my car the best he could.  He looked for blood from the deer and thank goodness there wasn't any.  Randy told me that he saw the doe get up from the street and run back to the left between some houses.

Randy also told me that you have to report an accident with a deer to the police.  Who knew?!  I didn't consider this an "emergency" since I thought I was ok and the car, thanks to Randy, was drivable.  I called 911 assuming they would send Amherst police to take a report.  For some reason, the State Police were called for this accident.

Randy offered to stay until the police got there but I didn't know how long that was going to take.  Why should both of our Friday nights be ruined!  Besides, it was getting colder and he had gone above and beyond for me already.   He did give me his name and number in case the police or insurance company needed it and he went on his way.

After the report was taken, one of the officers did go across the street with a flashlight to see if the deer collapsed behind the houses where it was last seen.  He found no deer, so I am hoping that she is fine.

Just what I needed.  Here's a $500 deductible down the drain.  And that didn't help my car phobia any.  On the plus side, there are still genuinely good people out there.  A huge thank you to a perfect stranger, Randy, who stopped in my time of need and just acted like a human being.  Thank you for holding my hand, thank you for putting my mind at ease that my car was drivable, thank you for just making sure I was ok.

Phil was nice enough to come outside with a camera when I got home Friday to document my new owie.  This is after he pulled that fender away from the tire.  This doesn't look so bad.   This was the first deer I ever hit and hopefully it will be the last.

It's only a car.  I hope the deer is ok.