Wednesday, April 07, 2010

It’s Not Personal – It’s Strictly Business

The subject of the following news story is an acquaintance of mine – I used to work with him. I have to admit that when I read this story it was all I could do not to laugh because I thought that this could only happen to him. And the reference I make in the title of this post to the movie “The Godfather” will become clear as you read the story.

I am, however, glad that Roy is not seriously injured. That would have made this situation tragic instead of somewhat amusing.

How a deer's head wound up in his car's passenger seat

By JASON SCHREIBER
Union Leader Correspondent

FREMONT – As a firefighter and paramedic, Roy Olsen thought he'd seen it all.

That was until the severed head of a pregnant deer crashed through his windshield Tuesday night, leaving him covered in glass and guts.

"The head was sitting in the passenger's seat," the 42-year-old Fremont man said this morning.

The bizarre accident happened around 7:30 p.m. when Olsen was driving a Jeep Grand Cherokee north on Route 125 in Brentwood. He was on his way to buy dog food at the Epping Walmart when he spotted a deer running across the road in front of a truck that was in front of him.

Olsen said he saw that deer make it across the highway, but then, out of nowhere, a head came flying. He believes it came from a second deer that was hit by a car traveling south on the highway.

"The next thing I knew my windshield shattered and I took a direct hit in the face and chest. The head came into the vehicle," said Olsen, a full-time firefighter and paramedic with the Hollis Fire Department.

100408brentwooddeer_200px (JASON SCHREIBER)

Roy Olsen's left arm remains in a bandage after he was injured Tuesday night when the head of a deer crashed through his windshield on Route 125 in Brentwood. (JASON SCHREIBER)

Police said Andrew Lichtenwalner, 41, of Nottingham, struck the deer with his Toyota Corolla. The impact decapitated the deer and sent the head and part of the chest into oncoming traffic while the rest of the body dropped into the middle of the highway.

When it hit the windshield, Olsen said he could feel parts of the deer wrapping around his head. The vehicle looked like something had been "massacred inside of it," he said.

Olsen was dazed after the accident, but he managed to get out of his vehicle as passersby stopped to help.

He suffered broken bones in his left hand, lacerations from the pieces of glass, and contusions to his chest.

It was difficult to assess the extent of his injuries at first because his face was covered in deer guts, he said.

Olsen's wife, Kelli, was stunned when she arrived a short time later and saw her husband.

"He looked like he came out of a horror movie," she said.

Lichtenwalner escaped injury, but his car was heavily damaged. Olsen's truck was also damaged from the deer head and a tree. He said the truck ended up rolling down an embankment and into a tree after he thought it was in park.

Olsen moved to New Hampshire from Florida in 2004 and said he was warned to watch out for deer when he arrived.

This was his first encounter with a deer, and he hopes it's his last.

"I was told by all the paramedics that I'm a lucky man, so I have to believe I'm a lucky man," he said, looking at his left arm in a bandage. "Somebody was looking out for me that day."

2 comments:

Elizabeth @ The Garden Window said...

Goodness ! He really was so lucky !

There are "caution - deer" signs along our local stretch of motorway as it runs along the boundaries of a large country park. I will be keeping an anxious lookout for runaway deer the next time we drive that way......

Susie Hemingway said...

That must have been SO frightning, it's a wonder he didnt have a heart attack poor man - I doubt I would ever recover from that.
We used to have to watch for camels living in the Emirates and there were some horrific crashes involving them. Thanks goodness this guy was not too badly hurt although the story does have an amusing jokey ring to it - I bet he was not too happy when he had to clean the Cherokee.