A few weeks back we were on our way home from a trip up to the Scranton/Carbondale area when we hit a deer. Fortunately no one was hurt, except the deer, but we were all were pretty shook up from it and it reminded me just how unpredictable deer, and life, can be.
We were on our way home, it was turning dusk but still plenty light out to see, and there it was, standing at the side of the road with his buddy. It might sound like there was a lot of time to avoid it, but in actuality it was only a few seconds between the time we saw the deer and my husband slowed down. The deer was doing one of those ‘I should go back the other way but I will run into the worst possible part of the road’, he went from ‘at the side of the road with my buddy’ to running directly into the path of my husband swerving out of the way of him. If he had stayed where he was he would have been just fine. If he had continued with his buddy into the woods he would have been fine. But no, he decided to be a literal deer in the headlights and run out into the road, directly into the path of someone swerving and stop and give a stare.
What was the deer thinking? Or was he not thinking? Fortunately we were not going that fast, but it was fast enough for mr. deer not to make it. We hit him pretty much square on, he went flying and after composing ourselves we glanced back and he wasn’t moving. My husband felt horrible for hitting him, but we were both just very relieved that everyone was ok.
Deer in this area are rampant – they eat through your garden in the spring and summer and are not shy about it. They will come up directly to the front of my house and eat out of the front flower beds without second thought. In the fall they are all over the roads and make driving, especially at night, extremely dangerous. They can also be very agressive, my small dog almost got trampled to death this summer when he decided to chase after some fawns and got attacked by an adult deer, I personally didn’t know they could attack like that, they always seem so laid back.
I love nature, I love animals and wildlife, but my encounters with deer this past year have really made me look at them in a different light. There are so many roads in the Poconos that are windy and dangerous as is, throw a deer in and that’s a recipe for disaster. We all try to be careful when driving but deer provide that extra element of surprise that really needs to be noted when driving in this area.
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