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back to article New Jersey flying deer floors Hippo

A New Jersey old timer is recovering from a nasty cut to the head after being floored by a flying deer as he took a stroll close to his Logan Township home. Donald Hippo, 66, was described by police as being "simply at the wrong place at the wrong time", in this case Grandview Road at around 9am last Thursday. A truck driver …

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  1. Chris

    Cervine road rage

    Both the truck driver and Mr Hippo should be glad it was a deer and not an elk (moose to the North Americans). Those bad boys are enormous when fully grown, with legs that keep the body clear of the top of the bonnet (hood to North Americans) on most cars and small trucks. This means that when you strike them, the mass of the body comes flying across the bonnet, through the windscreen (windshield to North Americans) and slap bang into the vehicles unfortunate occupants.

    Add this to common elk features like being obstinate, not very smart and particularly fond of standing in the middle of darkened roads, and you can see why so many people are killed in collisions with them in Scandinavia. Oh yes, and they are often drunk as well, as the plant matter they munch on can ferment in their bovine style stomachs, making them more stupid than you'd expect.

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  2. Dave Morris

    Sorry for my ignorance, but...

    If the European (original) term for moose is elk, what is the European term for elk?

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    bad news to hit any of them

    Elk; Also called European elk. the moose, Alces alces.

    Elk; Also called American elk, wapiti. a large North American deer, Cervus canadensis, the male of which has large, spreading antlers.

    Whitetail deer; a common North American deer, Odocoileus virginianus

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  4. Steven Raith
    Go

    Avoid cervine death - buy a Ferrari

    Or a Lamborghini [although not an LM002 or LM004, natch - google it] or anything else low and wedgy.

    Takes the animals feet out from under them, and the idea is they go right over the roof due to the low roofline.

    My old man can attest to this working after a deer decided to run out into the road as he was hurling up the old A9 past Berridale in a wedgy V8 motor - the bit after the Braes where you can start properly making progress, for those who have been there. Total damage: one broken fog lamp, and the roof aerial was snapped off, along with a couple of scratches that quite literally polished out.

    Pretty lucky really - as it was a Triumph TR7 he was driving. If he had hit anything smaller/more in line with the bonnet/screen, there'd have been bits of him all over the road. Not the best built motors, those old BLs....although I can't imagine an italian penis extension being any better.

    Ah, memories. Sheep are messier, especially at speeds beyond 40mph.

    Steven R

    GO, because despite being a BL POS, with twin carbs and retrofitted 16v-per-bank heads, it most certainly bloody did...

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  5. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    No Elk/Moose in NJ

    Would not have spotted one yet, whereas deer is in plentiful supply and not shy. Bears have been reported though, sure would not want to see one of these airborne...

    Mine's the one under the antler hat ;-)

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  6. Chris G

    Cervine pugnacity

    In wooded areas around the world( and sometimes in the open too) cervine strikes can be quite frequent and dangerous.

    Whilst driving through the Forest near Colgate in Surrey some years ago, a Roe deer poked it's head around a tree and then brutally charged my Escort. The out come was a double fatality , both the Escort and the deer died, fortunately the deer, after butchering provided me with about 40 lbs of meat including four nice joints, some mince and a large number of sausages. The Escort however, was totally buggered and only just made it to the scrappy (TPO ins), The good news was, it forced my boss to provide me with a company car.

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  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Deer can kill

    even 140 pound deer can kill you and get up and walk away. Bastard Moose is usually a term thats used in Alaska . Never heard the term really used in the lower 48. Oh bye the were in North America there is a difference between moose and Elk. look ant the antlers . Moose tend to be bigger, tear your car up alot more.

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  8. Al

    Stupid animals

    At the begining of the year I was leaving the parking lot at work when I was ambushed by a herd of deer causing me to slam on the brakes to keep from hitting one. Unfortunately that didn't prevent one of the stupid animals from running into the side of my pickup smashing the front fender and jamming the passenger door. When I told the guys at work the next day they kept questioning the fact that the deer hit me and I didn't hit the deer. I told them it was easy to see since the only damage was on the side of my truck and none on the front which there would have been if I had hit it. In this area of the ciiy the deer have gotten so thick that they allowed bow hunting of the deer in the city. The combination of forest lined streams connecting multiple parks allows for the movement throughout the adjacent cities. I'll often see small herds grazing on my way to work and there are probably a dozen signs along the way warning of deer crossings.

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  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Steven Raith

    "Or a Lamborghini [although not an LM002 or LM004, natch - google it] or anything else low and wedgy."

    Tell that to Cristiano da Matta. :P

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  10. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Even Whitetail Deer ...

    Even whitetail deer, which are relatively small, can do serious damage to a car. I was heading east at about 60 mph (a bit over 95 kph) from Cody, WY on US 14 last year when a small whitetail ran out in front of my Ford Freestyle (truck based SUV) too close for me to avoid, or even slow down. The impact did over $7,000 damage to the car. I was actually still able to drive it, but not for long... the deer's hoof had put a hole in the radiator and the car overheated within a mile. As for the deer, I never saw it again, even when coming back through on the tow truck. I think one of those redneck pickup owners who passed me sitting on the shoulder, disabled, probably stocked his freezer with venison. It didn't survive, not with all the blood on the pavement.

    Paris, 'cause I think I could have enjoyed being stranded out there for two hours with her.

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  11. Dr Patrick J R Harkin

    Moose-proofing

    Aren't Saab's designed to surive moose impact? IIRC one of their directors was taken out by a moose. Or is that an urban legend? I'm too lazy to check Snopes...

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  12. David Stever
    Black Helicopters

    Meese across America

    My dad and I came across a moose-car collision in 1967 in Vermont, driving towards the World's Fair at Montreal (us, not the moose). The moose, an antlerless youngster, was embedded in the front of a yellow sedan, looking like it was sleeping, and the driver of said sedan, covered in blood of indeterminate origin, was standing next to his vehicle, in the middle of the Interstate, touching his face over and over again. Dad couldn't get him to come with us, so we left him there and we called the officials from the next exit off the highway.

    15 years ago or so, my wife and I narrowly avoided becoming a moose-car collision, when the moose next to the road we traversed in northern Minnesota, didn't step down onto the road, but left us drive under it, in our Honda CRX. If the bastard had stepped into our path, there'd be no way for us to survive that encounter, and he'd might have still limped away from it.

    I've been told that male moose will not step away from confrontations with trains in Alaska, much to the chagrin of the locomotive drivers. Don't know what it would take to wash that mess off their train.

    Black Helicopter, because you'd be above the moose (insert Sarah Palin joke here).

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  13. Juliette Martens

    It's for headlines like these that I read Odds & Sods

    I'm relieved to hear he was just "at the wrong place at the wrong time" as opposed to being the victim of premeditated moosely ill-humour

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