Deputy carries frightened deer from road to safety (video)
By: Pete Thomas, GrindTV.com
Deer are famous for "freezing" in the headlight beams of oncoming cars, but for a doe on a rural Michigan highway, there were not only headlights but a mild collision with a car that left it frozen with fear in the middle of the road. The incident last Friday was captured by the video unit of a patrol car used by Deputy Ryan Swartz of the Huron County Sheriff's Department (the video was released Monday). Swartz, who was responding to the deer-versus-vehicle call, was unable to coax the doe off the roadway, so he just lifted the animal and carried it to the embankment.
"What he did is certainly not recommended but he felt confident enough because of his many years of experience with deer," stated a news release issued by the Sheriff's Department.
The deputy said that when he first arrived he thought the deer was a decoy because it stood totally motionless. He told local TV station WNEM TV5, "I figured as I walked up to it, it would just run off the road [but] it just stood still. It wasn't moving at all. So I went up and I pet it and I was thinking that would get the deer off the road."
When that didn't work Swartz simply carried the deer to one side of the road, then the other, and set the animal down. Eventually it regained its composure and trotted into a field. The entire episode lasted about 10 minutes.
i'm working in oregon this week and saw about 20 deer so far eating on the side of the freeway. you have to be really careful around here. last year i was driving in oregon about 5am and passed a huge buck with antlers and shit in the fast lane standing still. i was going about 75 and didn't see it until it was 20ft in front of me. i don't even want to think about what would have happened if i hit it.
Last year a friends band was coming home from Seattle real late at night. A deer jumped in front of the van and they swerved, rolling the van a few times over. Everyone walked away alive which was incredibly lucky. They should have just hit it being in a van. The guy who recorded this band and my old band only had a cracked rib.
[quote="guysmiley"]Last year a friends band was coming home from Seattle real late at night. A deer jumped in front of the van and they swerved, rolling the van a few times over. Everyone walked away alive which was incredibly lucky. They should have just hit it being in a van. The guy who recorded this band and my old band only had a cracked rib.
Yeah, but the thing is, it's not a conscious reaction. You only realize what's going on when you're already swerving. I've had this happen a lot, and luckily I never crashed. Living in rural VT for a number of years, I've had a lot of experiences with deer (as well as moose, bears, and so on). The strangest thing is when you drive right up to a deer and have to stop because they've frozen. Driving home from NINJA in 2009 I did some serious fishtailing on the highway when an adult female ran out in front of me on the highway.