The Doe and the Ram

In the middle of a summer not too long ago, my dad was driving down I-84 in his 2003 Dodge Ram 2500. It was just 4 in the morning, and the air was crisp and cool. It was supposed to be a great day! They were driving to the Boise Airport to fly out to Kentucky for a CTE educator’s conference. We were staying at a grandparent’s house. I woke up around 4 AM with the feeling that something was wrong. I dismissed it and fell back asleep. Little did I know…

My dad loves music. He often switches between three radio stations in the area. If one is on commercial, he will switch to another. That morning, he was doing what he always does. His eyes left the road for just a few short seconds to change the station. When he looked up, he saw a doe in his lane. His stomach sank to his knees. To his right: the thin patch of land between him and the westbound side of the freeway. To his left: a guardrail protecting him from a sheer drop off a cliff. The safest option would be for him to head straight on and hit the doe. He’d done this before. His pickup could take it. He had put on a nice bumper to guard his pickup just for situations like this. He slowed down as best he could and hit the doe head on. My dad thought it would be fine. It was a small doe, after all. All of this ran through his mind in a matter of seconds before he slammed into the doe. He waited for the feel of the doe’s now mangled body under his tires before he could pull over and drag it off the freeway. But the feeling never came. Instead was the screech of metal on pavement at 70 miles per hour. The cab now was a foot higher above the ground than it normally would have been. Sparks flew around the cab, the sound of screeching metal deafening. My dad pushed on the brakes once, twice. Nothing. My parents were at the mercy of inertia. My dad tried to pull over to the side of the road. It took an immense amount of effort. Once the pickup had finally stopped, both of my parents began to clamber out of the vehicle. My dad’s door opened just fine, but my mothers refused to open. My dad opened his door to an awful sight. The patch of ground between both sides of the freeway was ablaze. Any plants in that patch of ground were bone dry in the arid air of the High Desert of Eastern Oregon and were kindling for a massive fire. The sparks that surrounded the cab of the pickup just a few moments ago had lit the fire. My mother was still in the pickup, waiting for my dad to explain what had happened. My dad screamed at her to get out. Frantic, my mother tried to open her door. Nothing. My dad screamed louder now, more panicked than anyone had seen him in virtually all his life. My mother clambered out of my dad’s side of the vehicle and now saw the fire too.

“You have to get away from the pickup!” My dad screamed at my mom. My mom is not a mechanic like my dad, but knew well enough that if a fire that large is close to a vehicle, to RUN. And run she did, to the other side of the freeway. My dad ran to the back of the pickup to grab his shovel. The fire wasn’t too big yet, so he could still snuff the fire out with dirt. There was no shovel. They were on their way to the airport, and had taken anything and everything valuable off of the flatbed. The only thing left was the 2 X 4 we used as a tailgate. So my dad grabbed that, ignoring the splinters he was getting, and tried to snuff out the fire. The blaze had grown out of his control by that point. It was 4 in the morning, and hardly anyone was out on the freeway. Those that were on the road simply drove by, ignoring the blaze. My mom had called 911 from where she stood in safety. So there my dad stood, virtually surrounded by fire with nothing but an old 2 X 4.

So what had caused the fire? My dad has hit many deer and even elk with this same bumper on this same Ram 2500 pickup and came out just fine! Now here comes a little doe and it causes all of that. What had happened was the doe hit the bumper of the pickup just right, and somehow caused the bolts that held the bumper to the pickup to shear off, which then caused the bumper to curl under the pickup, lift the cab up, and scrape against the freeway. This bent the frame of the pickup and misaligned both the drive shaft and the front axel. This is why my mom couldn’t open her door!

In the end, everything turned out fine. The pickup was an expensive repair and they missed their flight, but they got the fire on the freeway put out and my parents were unharmed. All of that had happened in the span of a few minutes. A few seconds of distracted driving to change the radio station could have cost my parents their life. This is just one of my many experiences with distracted driving. I went through an Oregon State sanctioned Driver’s ed course, and had my drivers license for just under a year. In this small span of time, I have seen so many irresponsible drivers. To people on their phones, to speeding, to not paying attention to semi-trucks/horse trailers and their wide turns. While I have not yet witnessed a wreck, I’ve come up on the aftermath of a wreck a couple of times. I’ve even had to call 911! I believe that Driver’s Education is important to the safety of my community and many others around the world.