The Start

Witness to an accident

This morning, as Evelyn and I were heading back from exercise, we entered the dip in the road that is the start of the 50 km zone. On our left, I saw a little doe nibbling at a neighbour's tree. She was on the side of the road, so safe where she stood, chewing.

Deer and rabbits have a mental wiring that says "When there is trouble, go back where you came from." We knew that this location was trouble for the deer, so we slowed to a rolling stop. Over the ridge, in the other direction was a half ton, coming too fast. Evelyn leaned on her horn to warn the driver to stop! He slowed down as fast as he could, but the horn also startled the deer, and she took off in the direction of the woods on our side of the road.

She almost made it but the truck got her hind end, SCHMACK, and I saw the hit, her red legs flying out from under her. I screamed and shut my eyes. When I opened them, she had made it to the ditch on our side. Luckily, the truck driver stopped (he was probably too embarrassed to leave the scene, given that we were witnesses).

The bushes were moving, the only sign I could see of her struggle to get away. But I knew her back legs were broken, and there was no rescue for this beautiful beast.

Cell phones came out as we searched for a friend with a gun to come to our aide. Sometimes death is far preferable than life, certainly when death is certain no matter what the circumstances.

As I drove by the spot this evening, the spot where the deer was quietly feeding, and then across the road where she died, there were no bushes moving. The tragedy of this loss was gone from the landscape. But I cry for her.