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.
This reminds me of the Deer Woman in David Lynch's movie "The Straight Story." I thought that was a very funny scene.
" I don't need any more "racks""
Some guys would argue that you can never have too many "racks"....
My mother lived in Iowa and she had alot of experience with hitting deer. The first event happened after she got a brand new car. She told me to remember that there are always two and you will usually hit the second deer.
My girlfriend hit a deer and she had just had her car repaired and we were coming home from the mall when a deer ran in front of us and as she braked, she hit it and the second deer.
Hubby has always had VW diesels. He now has a 97 TDI. Nice quiet engine. Never had a deer run in front of the clattery ones. They always looked at us and ran the other way. Had a buck leap right into the front of the hood on the newer one.
"REAL hunters wouldn't chase a deer into 4 lanes of traffic."
Indians used to chase buffalo off cliffs. Why not? ;)
Deer run through there all the time but you usually don't see 3 guys with guns dodging cars and trucks. *eye roll*
I loved it but my tastes aren't exactly mainstream. It's Lynch's G-rated Disney tale of the old fellow who made a 320-mile trip to see his sick brother on a riding lawnmower. Except for the deer scene it's hardly identifiable as a Lynch movie, celebrating as it does normal Middle American values. It's for adults because it would bore kids to tears - the theme requires a little maturity. It was Richard Farnsworth's last role. Sissy Spacek, someone I normally don't like, was great in it.
I got so paranoid about deer that I dreaded driving at night. Mom sent me deer whistles and I asked my husband to put them on the car and after that, I felt safe. One day I went to the basement to get a screw driver out of my husband's tool chest and I saw the deer whistles and they were still in the package!
Did you hurt him? A lot? And often? Just what did you end up doing with the screwdriver? ;)
no, but I brought it up and he and my son about died laughing. I admit I had evil thoughts. lol
We have a VCR our niece and nephew gave us for Christmas a couple of years ago.We rarely use it because we don't care much for the stuff that's out there.
well, there are actually some very good films out there and you can rent all the oldie goldies classics!
LOL!
LOL!
Several years back a friend of mine bought a new Ford F-150. On his way home from the dealership a 8 point buck ran out in front of him and he hit it. Almost totaled his new truck.
He saved the dead deer and had the head mounted. On his den wall are several trophy mounts. Under each is a round that he shot it with it,.30-30,.270 and so on. Under this head is a little Blue Ford oval.
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