Deer vs. van

Those of you who read the Den know about this, but some of you don't belong there, so I thought I'd share our adventure with wildlife from last week.

All of us, including our dog Sam, had gone to visit my 88 year old grandma, Ruthie, on the Saturday before Election Day. We had a nice day-long visit with Ruthie and her sisters, Mabel and Jane, and Mabel's daughter Marsha. My mom was there with my two grand nieces, Riley and Trinity, as well as my brother Bill. Although these visits are always full of tension due to a lot of family dynamic issues, it was great to see all of them and let them see the kids and how much they've grown.

On our way home, Ian and Anna quickly fell asleep after such a full and busy day of keeping up with the cousins. Abby was watching a video. Earlier in the day my great aunt Jane had mentioned how scared she was to drive home that evening for fear of hitting a deer, which are rampant this time of year. It's the beginning of deer season, so they are running away from hunters, as well as the beginning of their rut, leading to more movement and motion than normal, especially in the predawn and dusk hours.

I was talking to Grandma Claire on the phone when I saw the deer. I knew there was nothing we could do. I just said "Oh God, a deer." It was just THERE. We were on a double lane highway and in the left-hand passing lane. The buck had crossed the other two lanes of traffic and moved into our lane within a split second. We were travelling around 60-65 miles per hour. John was very calm. The deer smacked our left front side and went flipping through the air. John steered the car to the side of the road and got us stopped. Meanwhile I am babbling to my mother-in-law that "We're fine...the car's okay, we're okay." John kept saying "The car is NOT okay!" which I knew, but I meant that we hadn't rolled over or had the deer come through the windshield or anything. I was afraid that I had scared Claire so I was trying to reassure her. Meanwhile, Anna had woken up, of course, and was sobbing. Ian was screaming too, mostly from sheer exhaustion. Someone who saw what had happened stopped to see if we were okay. I called 911 and we decided to try to get the van about 2 more miles to a gas station there. We barely made it because our radiator was broken and we could hear boiling sounds in the front end by the time we got there.

After a comedy of errors involving the deputies from 2 different counties, my aunt Jane coming to get us since she lived nearby, countless local yokels stopping to ask us "Did a deer do THAT?? Wow, that's a lot of damage for a deer!", insurance company weekend workers who knew NOTHING about how to help us, nice neighbors and their siblings who came to get us, etc...we ended up getting home at about 12:15 a.m. The kids were exhausted and all promptly went to bed, but John and I were too keyed up and upset to sleep for quite a while longer that night.

The upshot is that it's going to cost over $6400 to fix. I should get it back right before Thanksgiving. I could rent a car, but since I don't drive much during the day anyhow we'll be okay until we get it.

I STILL can see that deer when I close my eyes. I will never forget it. I'll also keep with me for a long, long time that vivid feeling of how quickly life can be snatched from us-how you just never know when it might end, or how. I'm so thankful that two of my kids were in five-point safety seats, and that the three adult-sized people were wearing their seat belts properly-and that we were relatively high off the road in the van. I am thankful we're all alive. The next day in the local paper there was a story about how bad the deer problem has gotten in Ohio and several surrounding states. There isn't much you can do to protect yourself against them. Ten people died in Ohio last year from hitting deer. Thousands more were injured. We are SO lucky.