Sunday, February 27, 2011

Date and time of incident: February 12th, 2011 at around 10:30 pm.
Incident: I hit a deer
While traveling east bound on 800 North in Orem Utah I was singing "Piano Man" by Billy Joel. The final verse was coming to an end and my wife and I had just passed the Cascade Golf Center. Things were looking peachy. We entered the area of the road where there are no street lights, the road slopes downward just before you reach the mouth of Provo Canyon. Leaping out of the black night appeared a young deer with sleek, shiny brown fur. Only inches in front of our vehicle there was no time to brake. The front driver's side of the vehicle contacted the very center of the deer's torso. He was flung up and over our vehicle landing in the middle of the road. I pulled onto a side street about a hundred feet down the road. My whole body was shaking and I couldn't stop replaying the last few seconds over and over in my head trying to make sense of what had happened. My wife was in a similar state. I quickly jumped out of the car to assess the damage. Fortunately, the damage was minimal compared to many other deer hits I've seen. Other than the shock of what had just happened we were both okay as well. Unfortunately the deer was completely pulverized. We called my parents to figure out what to do in the situation. My dad told me to call the police and then the insurance. After a quick conversation with the police department a couple police cars showed up to clear the road and make sure we were okay. After we got home we contacted our insurance and filed a claim. Unfortunately, our insurance policy did not include comprehensive insurance. We were stuck with the bill (which was minimal thanks to my friends at Cascade Collision Repair). The car is back to normal and running great. I had a friend say that once you've hit a deer, the likelihood of hitting another one increases. I told him that wasn't funny.