When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
On Sunday, Mr.owc6 and I were out for a nice drive (I was driving) to see the colors and do a little wine tasting in western MD. Perfect weather for a top-down drive.
We were about 80 miles from home on a two-lane road in an area where the road narrowed with no shoulder and a guardrail on our side of the road. There was no real verge, and the woods came virtually up to guardrail.
Mr.owc6 started to yell something, and I looked over to the right just in time to see a deer leap over the guardrail, take out the passenger side mirror, hit the door, and do a summersault completely over the car narrowly missing my head!
Fortunately, he ducked and reflexively covered his face with his hands, because part of the mirror housing impaled itself in his right hand. I hate to think how bad this could have been if it had hit his face. Both of us and the entire inside of the car were covered in mirror shards.
I pulled over as soon as the road widened enough to do so. He had already pulled the piece out of his hand (big no-no, btw), so it was bleeding pretty profusely. Thank goodness, I keep MF cloths in the car. They're very absorbent. We wrapped up his hand, and found the nearest hospital on the nav, and turned the car around, picked up what was left of the mirror, which was several hundred feet from where the deer hit us, and spent the rest of the afternoon in the ER.
We were so lucky! If he had hit the front of the car, it could have been so much worse for both us and the car. Strange as this sounds, it's probably a good thing the top was down, because it would have broken the window and probably gotten drug a ways instead of a clean flip over the car.
After Mr.owc6 was discharged we had a chance to get a look at the damage. At first glance, it didn't look too bad. Obviously a new mirror was needed, and this is a testament to the paint on the composite panels, all that was showing was a line of cracked paint, and some scuffing on both the top of the door and the leather on the inside was scuffed up.
That is until we opened the door. That deer was moving pretty fast to directly hit the side of the door hard enough to break it.
As hard as that deer hit the side, the side impact airbag did not deploy.
It sounds and was terrible, but as you say it could've been much worse. Even at a slight angle that deer hit the car going at whatever speed with a combined speed of the car and deer, so I'm not too surprised it broke the door panel. Plus, deer tend to weigh a lot. Best to Mr Ow. Hopefully, he and the car are back to new condition soon.
Sorry to hear this, and it's one of my biggest concerns this time of year (mating season). I've had many close encounters like yours, and it's too often completely unavoidable. They frequently appear out of nowhere in a flash.
Our house is surrounded by forest and fields, and I'm seeing bucks chasing does (a deer, a female deer) all hours of the day and night. The deer population in MD is out of control, and I counted close to a dozen deer carcasses on the side of the road on the way into DC yesterday.
You may not feel this way but Lucky You! It could have been much much worse! It still sucks but at least looks cosmetic. Be sure to document all the damage because they might try to diminish your cars value at trade or sell time and this damage was not that substantial.
2025 C8 Stingray of the Year Finalist - Unmodified
2024 C8 of the Year Finalist - Unmodified
Yikes!! Go play the lottery, you got very lucky. Glad no one was hurt and the damage can be fixed. Deer are all over here in Western PA and have one thing on their mind this time of year.
Last edited by Scruff Vette; Nov 8, 2016 at 11:57 AM.
Too close a call, thank goodness the two of you are OK!
I certainly would miss you and the Mr's witty banter, and comments.
Every time I blow my car off with the same leaf blower l use to blow my leaves, I think of your post, and get a laugh. A lot of people missed that one.
We all definitely have one more thing on our list to be thankful for this season.
Considering how far away the painted shell for the mirror was (at least 200 feet, and in the opposite shoulder), I'm assuming the mirror was somehow attached to the deer when it flipped over the car, and it finally fell off before the deer entered the woods on the opposite side of the road. No other parts of the mirror were anywhere except for the thousands of pieces of silvered glass all over the inside of the car and us, so I don't know if the deer was impaled with those parts and the shell fell off or exactly what happened.
Soon after I got my '09, I was going up a hill ~50 mph on a 3 lane highway in heavy traffic; 2 lanes going up and 1 down. Out of the corner of my right eye I see "something" sliding on the road from right to left about 25' in front.
Turned out it was a deer that must have been hit by a vehicle in the right lane and was now in MY lane. I had NOWHERE to go and had to drive over it. The car "jostled" as I went over but that was it. No way could I have stopped or pulled over.
I kept going on my way home hoping for the best. I didn't see any damage and when I had the car in for its state inspection a week later I gave the service writer a "deers up."
The tech said there was NO EVIDENCE that I had run over an animal of any sort, let alone a deer. Good thing, because he said they have to "farm out" a clean-up like that to another place.
Venison T-Bone
