Posted on 09/16/2005 7:25:15 AM PDT by smoothsailing
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2005
Woman a magnet for suicidal deer
Catawba resident has talent for colliding with whitetails
BY ANDREW DYS
The (Rock Hill) Herald
CATAWBA
Dynamite Deb drives and hits deer. She rides and hits deer.
"Maybe now I'll walk," the damsel dubbed Deerslayer said.
After hitting three deer -- two within a 12-day span, the last one while riding a motorcycle -- Debra Adkins, at 54 years old going on 18, might try staying home at night.
"Hope not, she's my best customer," said Jerry Wingate at Clinton Family Ford's body shop. "Call her the Deerslayer. She's killed more deer than me, and I sit out in the cold tryin' to do it for years. She just turns the key, and they come runnin'."
"I only killed the first one," Adkins corrects. "The other two ran off after."
Adkins is no animal hater, but she's a magnet for suicidal deer. The first one hit her SUV last year on the Thursday before Easter when she was just two houses from her rural Catawba driveway.
She was coming home from bowling in the late-night league in Rock Hill. Direct hit. That buck limped off and died in the neighbor's flower garden.
Then, the Thursday before Labor Day, in a new Mazda SUV, she hit another deer about two miles from the house. Late-night bowling did her in again.
"Dear Hon'" read the note Adkins left for her husband, Bill, who was asleep when Adkins got home that night. "You might want to take my car to work. I need another estimate. I hit another deer. Sorry. Love, Me."
But after a recent prayer meeting at church and nighttime breakfast with friends, deer coincidence ratcheted into outright bad karma.
Adkins and her husband were riding separate motorcycles to and from church in nearby Charlotte. The motorcycles were equipped with deer whistles, which make noise that is supposed to scare off deer.
"Somebody told me deer stay away from bright lights," Adkins said. "So I took the main road. Normally, I would take the back roads. Bill was behind me. All the way home, I'm thinking about deer. Deer on my mind. Deer. Deer. Deer."
Blurs with antlers and white butts crossed Anderson Road. She swerved to miss the first but the second one sideswiped her.
Adkins went down in a sliding heap. She survived without a broken bone, but her bruises are deep and she's stitched up like a hand-me-down summer dress.
Two days in a hospital and all Adkins will give up is riding at night. "Two Bibles in the saddlebags saved me," Adkins insists. "And my helmet."
Bill Adkins cleaned the fur off the motorcycle and fixed the bent parts, but he can't say much to his wife about driving and deer.
"About two or three years ago," Bill admits, "I left church and ... one hit me right in the front and side. "It hit you?" his wife of 36 years asks with a raised eyebrow. Jolts of pain hit her when she laughs, but the suffering is worth it. "You didn't hit him, huh?"
This article was printed via the web on 9/16/2005 10:05:28 AM . This article appeared in The Post and Courier and updated online at Charleston.net on Friday, September 16, 2005.
ping
Late night "bowling".
Her pearls are hiding her navel.
That is just creepy. My wife has had several near misses and now is deathly afraid of deer. She is actually convinced they are out to get her.
I'd say that area is long overdue for a deer poulation reduction.
White-tailed rats with antlers.
She told the Genie that she wanted the big bucks.
That must be the deer in the headlight look?
"Call her the Deerslayer. She's killed more deer than me, and I sit out in the cold tryin' to do it for years. She just turns the key, and they come runnin'."
Bwahahaha! DeerDestroyer! BambiBlaster!
I suppose that's better than being a tornado magnet like myself.
Yeah. Extend deer-hunting season or something.
LOL. Saw a local here with his grill bashed in. He had a sign in it's place that read:
The Deer is Dead!
Or, allow no-limit taking for a year or two.
I had a deer run directly into the side of my car. I don't know if it's a herding instinct that causes them to "join up" or what.
I know my time is coming. My whole family lives in a fairly rural, mostly agricultural area and I've had many near-misses. I know to drive slowly at dawn and dusk near Waterloo Rec (south central Michigan) or I'll be serving up Bambi-burgers on my hood.
Sounds like a story there. Please share some details.
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