Bad Moose

I had been driving all afternoon. Driving from camp to town to drop off the crew, town to the farm to swap vehicles, now on the home stretch from the farm to my home town. Less than an hour to go, nearly midnight. I hadn't showered in a week and I had a phone call to make. Driving, wondering if it would be too late to call. It was a clear night, visibility as good as one could hope for. I still didn't see it coming.

I was cruising around 110 km/h when he ran out in front of me. They say moose always take the easiest path, including using the spot of light provided by vehicle headlights. I didn't even see a proper silhouette, let alone have time to hit the brakes or think about swerving. I remember the sound of smashing glass and having time to think "This is really going to hurt," and then it was over. I had crossed the oncoming lane and came to a stop on the shoulder. A little further onto the soft sand and I would have rolled down the bank to the tree line.

My immediate thought was denial. Maybe I was dreaming. I was probably still back in my tent having a detailed dream. Next up was amazement, as I listened to hoofs running on pavement. I think I even said it out loud, "That bastard got away." I didn't want to move too much in case I was hurt, so I sort of flexed from left to right. At this point I realized I had a death grip on the steering wheel and that somehow during the smashing I had managed to mash my right foot on the brake pedal. In relaxing my limbs, I realized I had glass in my knuckles, but they still worked. I also nearly had a major groin muscle spasm from standing on the brakes so hard. I decided I was not broken, so getting out of the now very broken van was a good idea. I could hear fluid pouring out from somewhere underneath, and I had visions of a Hollywood explosion, even though sitting here typing in the daylight I know that almost never happens.

Understandably, the headlights no longer worked. I don't even know if they were still attached. I went around to the back and was greeted by the sight of a moose corpse on the opposite side of the road from me, steaming garishly in the red tail lights. He hadn't gotten away after all. There I was, 19 years old, all alone on a quiet highway in the middle of the night with a wrecked van and a big dead moose. At least I was hoping it was all the way dead. Growing up in that part of the world you frequently hear of a single moose destroying a transport truck and running off into the woods like nothing happened. Or laying there stunned and then getting up and mauling the nearest moving thing. No one wants to be a cautionary tale.

This wasn't in the days before cell phones, but it was 10 years before I had one. Thankfully, I didn't have to wait long before a truck came by and stopped. The driver was only a few years older than me, also a tree planter. He had a first aid kit but no cell phone. I used his tweezers to pull the glass out of my knuckles and he offered to drive me to the mill that was not far away so I could call my folks. I didn't know if I was supposed to call a tow truck or the police or what, but I figured my dad would know. When I went back to the van to get my stuff, I nearly broke down. I opened the van door, and all of a sudden my heart was pounding and my hands were shaking more violently than I'd ever seen them. I didn't really know what was happening, but in the back of my head I knew I had a choice. I could let it happen and shake and sob there on the side of the road, or I could swallow hard and get in that man's truck. I chose to clench my fists, take a deep breath, and keep moving.

As I was gathering myself and my things, another truck stopped. He nearly hit the moose carcass as he came to a stop. Thankfully, he had a cell phone. I called my dad, told him what happened and where I was. He did just what I had hoped and stayed calm, telling me he was on his way. He confessed later to not being sure what he was supposed to do, other than come get me.

In the mean time, I became the hub of a growing crowd. An ambulance stopped by on their way back to town from another call. They checked me over to make sure I wasn't walking around with a broken neck before carrying on their way. A Greyhound bus stopped because one of the passengers was a paramedic and he demanded to make sure he wasn't needed. Then the police arrived. My dad had called the conservation office, but they don't respond if the animal is dead (mercifully, it stayed dead the whole time). "Call the police" they said. Dad didn't know if the animal was on the road or completely on the shoulder, so they sent a cruiser to make sure. Turns out, a dead animal not impeding traffic is out of any jurisdiction but the crows. By the time Dad arrived, there were vehicles parked on both shoulders, a police car with all the lights on, flares up and down the sides of the road, and me standing there with my bag of dirty laundry, periodically ensuring first aid enthusiasts that I was indeed okay.

I took a week off from planting to let my hands heal and make sure my back wasn't going to seize up. The insurance company wrote off the van, what with the motor off the mounts, the entire front end smashed, and moose hair completely coating the interior. That stuff was everywhere. My dad took me to the wrecker that week to see the damage, and we left without saying much.

I never did have that panic attack that nearly overwhelmed me on the side of that dark highway, but I nearly recreated the experience not two months later. I was driving the same stretch of highway in the daylight when the car in front of me suddenly slowed down. I was annoyed until a big buck darted behind them and in front of me. I missed him by barely an inch. I could see the blood vessels in his eyes, he was so close. I pulled over because I could feel that tightness coming in again. Strange that the closest call I've ever had came within a few weeks of my only actual accident. I haven't come anywhere so near to hitting an animal since, despite continuing to drive animal infested highways at all hours.

British Columbia is a big place. There are thousands of cut blocks and dozens of companies putting seedlings where trees used to be. The summer after my accident, I found myself on the same cut block as the guy who first stopped to help me. The world is a strange place.