Quote:
Originally Posted by poohbear_nc
About 5 years ago, I was driving in my VW Rabbit after dark on a country road, and a doe bounded into the road, crossed it and then stopped on the edge with her rear end still in my path. I swerved left as far as I could (didn't want a head-on collision in the left lane) and smacked into her. She was seemingly fine - and bounded away. My entire right front headlight assembly was crushed, the radiator grill bent, etc.
Before this had happened, I had attached "deer alert" whistles to my car (I do a lot of driving on country roads) [ http://www.amazon.com/Wind-Activated...436514&sr=1-2]. Ironically, after the collision, the right side warning whistle was pointing straight up! I guess she heard the whistle, and stopped to listen!  |
An old friend in an EMT in northern New Hampshire. He posted to a list I'm on describing an ambulance call.
They'd been called to a local resort to pick up an apparent heart attack victim. On the way back, they side-swiped a moose. The patient was awake in the back, and said "What was that?". The attendant riding with him said "You know all those signs on the road about moose crossing? That's why..."
As my friend described it, when a moose is startled, the first thing it does is defecate, copiously. The moose was unharmed by the collision, shook itself, and ambled away. The ambulance was less fortunate. It lost the driver's side read view mirror, suffered various dents, and the entire left side of the vehicle was coated in moose dung. They had to wheel the patient into the hospital on a gurney from farther away than was the usual practice, and thoroughly hose down the ambulance before parking it again in the firehouse.
At that, they were lucky. The moose was merely startled, and not actually mad. An enraged moose will come after you and
not stop. And they are big enough and powerful enough that if they catch you, your car is probably totaled, and you might be too.
______
Dennis