A police officer in Kentucky recently had a close call with a deer – a potentially deadly encounter that was all caught on dash cam.
The Kenton County Police Department posted the video to show drivers how to properly try to avoid a collision with an animal. And, they did it with the requisite amount of humour.
“Officer Pittaluga encountered a large deer while driving on Decoursey Pike through Visalia. The encounter was less than cordial and ended as abruptly as it began. We think this video is a pretty good training video on how to react when a four-legged furry friend attempts to abruptly cross your path. Officer Pittaluga applied his brakes and steered away from the deer in a controlled manner,” the department posted on Facebook. “Although he didn’t manage to avoid the collision, he did maintain control of his vehicle throughout the entire incident, even when the large (but apparently agile and acrobatically trained) deer was performing a Triple Axel over the hood of his cruiser.”
Watch the video here. The slow-motion edit is incredible.
The officer wasn’t hurt, but the car did end up with a little damage.
“As for the deer, he appeared to brush off the incident before quickly running away into the woods,” police continued. “We did place a call to Santa just to be sure this deer didn’t belong to him (we would hate to end up on the naughty list). He was quick to point out that he employs reindeer and that, although this deer did appear to fly, it was not a reindeer (we still aren’t clear whether we will be making the nice list or not).”
“National media is reporting that the Deer Lives Matter group and PETA are calling for all squad cars to be parked until a full investigation be completed. Citing the Visio from the dash cam was not clear and the officer may have tampered with the mounting bracket to avoid a clear view of the assault.”
Police have maintained their good humour, knowing the video would good viral, and updated with this post.
“We wanted to highlight the safety message that vehicle collisions, whether involving animals, people, other vehicles, or other things, can happen in the blink of an eye. In 2014 alone, there were over 3,000 collisions between vehicles and deer in Kentucky. As a result of those crashes, 115 people suffered injuries and three people died. We wanted to show that a controlled and safe reaction while driving can potentially mitigate the severity of a collision.
The Kenton County Police Department uses social media to engage the community we serve. We post safety tips, warnings about road closures, requests for assistance in identifying suspects, pleas for help in finding missing or runaway kids, and, from time to time, posts to remind everyone that police are human beings with a sense of humor. We allow comments on those posts and, aside from the language filters provided by Facebook, we generally do not censor public comments on our posts. We will, however, delete any comment that is criminal or is designed to incite criminal activity.
Please know that comments by others on our page are not necessarily reflective of the views or values of our agency or any of the officers or civilians we employ.
Just as we did before the internet even existed, the officers of the Kenton County Police Department are committed to serving our community with integrity and respect each and every day. The words of our mission aren’t just words on a poster, they are the motivation our officers carry with them from the moment they take the oath to serve the great community we are privileged to serve here in Kenton County.”
h/t The Globe and Mail Photos Kenton County Police Department/Facebook
