More "Holy Crap!" Than "Oh Dear"

This morning as I was enjoying the sun rising behind me, traveling west on I-80 in Ohio toward Toledo where we were to make our delivery, I had a little incident. I was listening to the morning news and as I scanned the road ahead, something caught my eye. At first, I didn't realize it was three-dimensional; I thought it was some sort of dirt spot in the road. I just saw a flash of brown.

But in that very same instant, I realized it was a deer and I knew I was going to hit it. I instinctively hit the brakes but it didn't do anything it seems except to make the deer stop and look my way. I gripped the wheel tighter and just held on until impact. Ed was sleeping but immediately woke up to ask, "What was that??"

"I just hit a deer." I said. You can see it happening here:

I just kept driving (sort of like when I was in trucking school and got hit by a dump truck) since there really wasn't a safe place to pull over. The shoulder was an option, but since I didn't see the deer on the road anywhere and there was no traffic, I kept going until I came to the rest area; I had seen a sign for it and knew it was only a few miles up the road. I didn't hear anything wonky with the truck, my steering was okay and no one was hurt.

I guess Eddie's video system finally payed off. We know exactly the time the accident happened thanks to the timestamp. Once we got to the rest area, we called the police to come out to file an incident report for the insurance company. Here's me trying to escape from the back of the police car:

Once the report was done, we were back on the road and believe it or not, made our delivery on time!

I was very surprised at how much damage was done to the bumper of the truck. I am glad it didn't do any damage to the fiberglass of the hood since we just had that fixed, but I can't believe how bent the bumper got. The fog light was completely destroyed and the bumper was bent so far back that it was a mere 1/2" away from the steer tire. I could've had a blowout!

Check out more pictures HERE.

I've always worried about hitting a deer (and a moose, and a donkey, and a cow...), my biggest concern being that it would "hop" the hood and come flying at the window. I've never hit a deer in my life, even when I lived in the rural backwoods of upstate New York. It was actually less scary than I thought it would be. I hope this doesn't mean that I'm going to become a deer magnet.

If so, I'll have to paint a little deer icon on the side of the truck and make hash marks next to it.


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