I was riding in the back seat of Mom’s car as a young lad - early teens, as I recall - and we were dirving along the winding, rural road on which we lived. Mom came around a curve, and there was a duck crossing the road. She tried to stop, jerking us both forward into our seatbelts - but to no avail. Clearly audible was the ‘thunk’ of car on duck contact.
Mom was upset. She had been startled, I suppose, and the adrenalin was pumping, and she naturally was dismayed at hitting an animal. So she puts the car in reverse, hoping to back away from the duck to see if it was okay. She taps the gas.
Thunk.
At this point, she’s literally hysterical. Both in the personal sense, and in the observed sense - I am not a fan of the idea of a poor dead duck, but Mom’s overreaction was hilarious. Desperately trying to extricate herself, she reasons (I suppose) that she should go forward, as perhaps the duck is closer to the rear. So the car moves again.
Thunk.
The third thunk signals the end of her will to act, and - completely panicked - she just stops.
A moment later, a very dazed duck waddles out from under the car and goes on its way.
My mom accidentally drove over our beagle-mutt’s tail while he was snoozing on the driveway, nearly severing it. The vet cut off the end and Casey had a stubby tail to the end of his days.
I hit and killed a cat while driving down a dark country road 20-some years ago. It darted into the road and I didn’t have the chance to stop in time or even swerve. I stopped the car, put on my hazard lights and got out; the cat was obviously mortally injured. A guy came down from a house nearby and said no one owned the cat; it was “just a stray.” I still feel bad about it, even though there was no way I could’ve avoided hitting it.
In terms of catastrophic, couldn’t-possibly-stop-in-time-to-make-a-difference roadkills, I’m definitely an ace. I’ve killed cats, dogs, snakes, rabbits, birds and once, a bat flew directly into my windshield.
The scariest one happened late at night as I was driving home down a rural highway. Now, this road is definitely very rural, but it is 4-laned and has a 65 mph speed limit. It was clear, empty, and I was doing about 70 (sue me. Wouldn’t have made a difference.)
Suddenly, a HUGE shape flashes out of the treeline, and tries to make it in front of my car at full sprint. For the millisecond I see it in my headlights, it appears to be a rather enormous dog. I hit it at full bore between the headlights at 70 mph. I immediately stopped, but the dog was nowhere in sight. There was no blood on my grille, but my hood and one quarter panel had sustained truly incredible amounts of damage.
I still have no idea what happened to the dog. I mean, yeah, it died, but I dunno where.
Reminds me of one time when my parents took us to a hotel. It started raining, heavily, and dozens of frogs came out.
My siblings and I decided we had to reunite a little frog with his “mom”, so we placed “him” in front of “her”. They stood perfectly still for a couple of seconds, watching each other. And then the “mom” pounced on the “child”, and started swallowing him by his head, his legs still wriggling around.
I remember once reading about an unpleasant incident during the Iditarod sled-dog race. A pregnant husky gave premature birth during the race (the musher hadn’t even known she was pregnant), and the next dog in harness gobbled up the embryos without breaking stride. :eek:
I’ve always been very careful with pets, and so has my family, but one of our pets wasn’t so lucky. Just a warning that you may not want to read this.
When I was about 7 or 8, we adopted a tiny little ginger kitten from a local shelter and we called him Spike because when he cleaned his fur, there were always little bits he left sticking up. He was really young and small enough to We had only had him for about a week when we had a big, mahogany dining set and a wardrobe delivered. One of the delivery guys, a big dumb ox of a man, was carrying a something and not watching where he put his feet and Spike came from nowhere and ended up square under his massive steel-toed boot. There was a sickening crunch, and the delivery guy’s immediate reaction was to laugh before stopping himself. He actually thought it was funny!? It was awful. Spike was just a flattened mess of bloody fur and guts. It took a moment for me to process what had happened to sink in, and when I did, I screamed. My mom was outside and didn’t hear it, but the other delivery guy, who was a bit older, came into the room and berated the younger guy for not being careful. Then my mom came in and saw the awful mess on the floor and she started yelling. This asshole wasn’t even man enough to offer an apology. He just tried to justify it by explaining that his size 15 boots made it hard not to step on things. (As if that’s an excuse not to be careful?!) Then he got defensive and said “Lady, I can’t help it if your stupid ****** cat runs under my foot.” The confrontation got even more heated and the delivery guy finally said “I don’t need to listen to this ****” before he stormed out, making a point of twisting his boot on the mess of Spike’s body on the way. Mom made a complaint to the company, but we never found out if something was done. I suppose it was good that Spike died instantly, not writhing in pain, but that doesn’t take away the sting of having your pet crushed before your eyes by some big asshole who didn’t even care. I had nightmares for years.
My wife is convinced this is how one of our cats will eventually die. We just hope he doesn’t take out one of us or our daughter when he does it. He likes feet, and has been known to sneak up behind you and lay down RIGHT behind your feet, while you’re standing. He also sometimes lays on the steps (which is what really scares me, especially when carrying my daughter downstairs). I hope I never have a similar story to your dad, but it’s quite possible.
Our pet cats always lived very long lives. One had made it to 16 and had started to slow down and lose some hearing in his old age. I was backing out of the garage and felt something bump under the car. I stopped immediately, got out and tried to find out what had happened. Nothing was under my car, nothing was around it. My parents came out with my son, who was about 2 at the time, and I told them I thought I hit something. All of us are looking around and then we hear, “Uh oh. Poor kitty!”
Turn and look and my little guy is pointing to something in the bushes. I had hit the cat and he ran over there. No gross blood and guts stuff but you could tell he wasn’t going to make it. This was on a Sunday about 7PM and the nearest emergency vet was an hour away. We could tell he was suffering so my dad picked him up and took him out in to the woods and shot him to end it quickly. My mom said my dad cried like a baby when he had to do it.
I still feel horrible about it and it was 11 years ago.
