Head-on Collision

William Wise Photo Nature Notes is a wildlife, landscape, birding and nature photography blog documenting the wonders of God’s creation. -- Psalm 119:66 Teach me good judgment and knowledge: for I have believed thy commandments.

Dead four-point buck with broken antler on tailgate of a truck with Georgia license plate. Road kill picked up by dead animal removal department.

Friday, 7:43 AM – ​The fall roadsides frequently paint the picture that it was a tough night for the White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus). With the disappearance of wolves and large cats from the landscape, the deer’s only predator has become man, whether behind a rifle or behind a steering wheel. Over the last few weeks, I’ve spied several carcasses making wintertime fodder for the hosts of Black Vultures and Turkey Vultures now populating the countryside. Always interested in what I might find, I constantly scan the roadsides, but usually have no plans of stopping unless I see an antlered skull to add to my collection. 
​
Nearing the end of my 40-minute early morning drive to work, I spied a large brown body laying in the median near the truck stop on Highway 78… and there were antlers! I made a quick u-turn to verify, and then sped off to my office to get a pick up truck.  

DOA deer with antlers always disappear quickly here in Georgia. A few weeks ago a nice 6-point buck got his back leg hung up while jumping a wrought-iron fence. He was hanging face down, but was still alive. Before the police officer could arrive to end his suffering, there was already a small crowd of spectators waiting in line hoping to get some venison or a nice display rack. So I didn’t have much hope this buck would still be waiting on me in the median when I returned. 

Getting back and pulling up closer to the scene, I saw a large Fed-Ex 18-wheeler pulled over to the side and the driver standing in the median taking pictures. I thought for sure my deer would be taken from before my very eyes. “Are you gonna take him, or just takin’ pictures?” I asked. He saw the Animal Control decal on the side of the truck and assumed I was the authority sent to remove the carcass. “I’m the one that hit him!” he declared. “I came up through here last night around nine-thirty and he came out of nowhere.  That’s my bumper over there”, he exclaimed pointing about 30 yards down the road. “Knocked his antler clean off and he left a good dent in my grill.” 

Looking closer at the deer, I saw what must have been a head-on collision had indeed broken one antler off his head right at the skull, reducing him to a two-point buck. Searching the median and roadside, the broken antler was nowhere to be found. It was either knocked clear back into the woods, or had been picked up by another motorist who passed by earlier than me.  His missing antler was most likely the reason he wasn’t already carted off in another country boy’s pickup truck. After helping the driver carry his bumper back to his truck, I figured, “Why not?” and with the assistance of the package handler, loaded him up to get a one-antlered display skull. 

After a few months of allowing nature’s taxidermists to clean the skull, I retrieved it from my cache in the woods and began the final cleaning.  I was amazed to see the damage from this head-on collision. The zygomatic arch under the eye on same side as the missing antler was broken in pieces. In fact, the upper and lower jawbones on that side of the skull were completely shattered. He had taken on that entire big rig with the right side of his face! 

As I sat gluing on the back of his skull, which had also been broken off in the impact, I began to contemplate. I fully understand that deer don’t have the full range of thought that we have, but I wondered what he was thinking as the darted across the highway in front of that truck. Was he too sure of himself and his fleet-footed speed? “I can outrun it! It will never catch me!” Was he an overconfident young buck disproportionately proud of new rack? “I can face this thing head on!” Did he lack fear and the realization of just what exactly this semi-truck  could do? “It won’t hurt me.” Or did he simply misjudge the timing and make a foolish mistake? Whatever his reasoning, the consequences were fatal. 

How many of us, with full capacity of thought and judgment, and with a host of examples of the fatal collisions of others before us, still make foolish decisions? How many people’s lives are wrecked by sin as they boast, “It will never catch up to me. I can outrun it. I can take on this thing!” But in the end, there’s the fatal, traumatic impact upon life that always occurs. 
​
The crowning majesty of a deer is his rack. This young buck’s glory was broken by a lack of judgment. His skull now hangs in my office. Seeing his clearly lopsided visage, all who enter ask astonished, “What happened to him?” The sole antler sticking out the left side of his now imbalanced looking skull is a testimony to an imbalanced decision. How many people, by lack of proper judgment, end up in traumatic situations? Physical death may not always occur immediately, but the road of sin leads only one place: “In the day thou eastest thereof, thou shalt surely die.” (Genesis 2:17)  Even if we are confident that we can outrun it, or proudly think we can face it head on, or poorly judge the outcome, a head-on collision with sin has only one result, and the glory with which God has crowned man is broken, leaving the testimony of wrecked lives evident to all.  So teach me, God, “good judgment and knowledge.” 

Walton County, Georgia
Highway 78 at Unisia Drive