Roadkill??

[Newshutr]

Anyone ever been on assignment and hit an animal?? I don't mean to be morbid. Just curious. I had a seagull commit suicide using my livetruck this morning. Feathers everywhere while I was doing 60 mph.

I've also hit a possum and a squirrel while heading to a story. Oddly enough with the same reporter in the car.


http://newshutrsviews.blogspot.com

[focusthis]

BTSatman had a good one... Owl vs. SNG. One of them was at the wrong altitude.

He may have pix, or recipies!

[<PetKiller>]

No, but I was close to hitting one. Just about two weeks ago we were doing a live shot and I can hear tires squeel and then a loud thud. In my viewfinder I could see a dog in the road. Kind of sad. Oh well.

[WHIZkid]

Deer X 2...
THe first one I was coming back from a story about a town (actualy a wide spot in the road) that was having a town meeting as to weather to be a town, or disolve into the township. A town in which everyone over the age of consent had "sommer teeth"... Fortuneately for the truck, the deer's hoofs slipped out from under it when it jumped he gard rail, and it went under the truck. After a Deputy dispached the poor thing, a shirtless, shoeless, bib-overall wearing gentleman(?) came running from his mobil home waving his licens in the air yelling "I'm a hunter, can I keep that?"

The other was on my way home form a basketball game. This one was quite un-eventfull compared to the last one, except it jacke hte truck up prety good.

[Shootblue]

Deer in a live van on the way to a huge fire. Thing hit me, then went up and hit the oncoming car. First thing I was afraid of was that I hit a person. Never even saw it.

[Coug86]

On the way back to the Station from late Live shot when I was woking in Tennessee...Sat truck in front of me...Possium gets caught in the rear dual wheels of the Sat truck and is launched at my news car...flys right over the top of my windsheid....eyes wide open and screaming... I think...the possium not me...Got on the radio to the Sat truck Op...told to make his aim better next time..

[MadMax]

Didn't happen to me, but I heard about it.

Out in the farmland here, another photog and a reporter who gets sqemish around just about anything that you wouldn't see in a city are driving along.
A rabit decides to run under the rear tires of the truck in front of them. The truck is going around 50 mph and its rear wheel drive. Needless to say there wasn't much of the rabbit left for the hawks to pick at.

The reporter was very traumatized and white as a sheet for the rest of the day. She would recover, but no one talks about it.

Unrelated, there was a cat that got hit a block from the station a few months ago. Well, when the weather turned cold, one of the cat's legs went sticking straight up in the air. I couldn't help but laugh but feel bad at the same time. The damn thing was out there for a good 2 weeks too.

[yellowbeta]

A couple years ago, I was on a mad dash to get to a football game over a hour away. I was heading down a rural road. On the hillside next to the road I could see a deer running along. Of course the deer decided to turn, run down the hill, and right into the side of my car. The deer slid across the good (looking into the car at me). Then it kept going up another hill. No damage to the car, but I had deer crap all over the place.

[Shaky & Blue]

http://www.gutrumbles.com/archives/free%20cat.JPG

[Baltimore Shooter]

Originally posted by WHIZkid:
Deer X 2...
THe first one I was coming back from a story about a town (actualy a wide spot in the road) that was having a town meeting as to weather to be a town, or disolve into the township. A town in which everyone over the age of consent had "sommer teeth"... Fortuneately for the truck, the deer's hoofs slipped out from under it when it jumped he gard rail, and it went under the truck. After a Deputy dispached the poor thing, a shirtless, shoeless, bib-overall wearing gentleman(?) came running from his mobil home waving his licens in the air yelling "I'm a hunter, can I keep that?"
Oh my God!!! Where was that??? That's a movie just waiting to happen. "Deliverance 2: Return of the Rednecks" :D

Warren

[Filter_5]

About 6 months ago i was sent out onto the navajo indian rez to shoot a high school football game, 2 hour drive along highway 666, anyway I was cruising back to the station going about 75, when this stray skinny dog came running out, I was in the inside lane the dog and my suv collided and i nailed it, i felt bad, but the sad part is i probably put it out of its misery...

[btsatman]

http://www.road-kill-cafe.com/pics/roadkillpossum.jpg


Originally posted by focusthis:
BTSatman had a good one... Owl vs. SNG. One of them was at the wrong altitude.

He may have pix, or recipies! Sorry, no pix, but you should have seen it, freezing cold out, and owl flys right in front of me as I am going 65 on interstate. I thought it was coming through the windshild. It got wedged between the bumper and grill, with it's left wing sticking out like it was indicating a left turn. It froze there, and we couldn't get it out for a week. We were covering the big snow storm and we parked in a rest area allong I-95. Everybody that pulled in there was giving us grief about the big dead bird stuck in the grill.

And then once there was this jack-o-lope...

[<How Many Licks>]

this wasn't an animal, but still funny none the less. the other night i was driving on the highway at 7 or so at night. i was crusing along fine and dandy when out of the darkness flies as red sucker. it smacked the wingshield, but i jumped like i was being shot at. the car ahead of me had a bunch of outrageous kids in it. they thought it was funny when i passed them. looking back it kind of was...

[(Sin)ical]

I've killed the pigeon. It's just like on "Seinfeld"...they don't always get out of the way.

[Lost in Alaska]

I have never hit any animals yet, but on my way back from a fishing report I came across a moose v. Subaru. It was hard to tell who won because the right A pilar for the car was gone and the roof was folded back to the rear door.

[KsPhotog]

I nailed a pheasant last fall, feathers everywhere. Been very lucky not to hit any deer yet. Our station is in the middle of a field so there's all kinds of critter roaming around. (Usually IN the station)

[guru]

We maimed a deer once and had to call the Sherrif to finish it off. I'm helping the guy track the deer down and the reporter was crying. Funny.

[MOShooter]

This past hurricane season, while covering Ivan's threat to Plaquemines parish, I hit a seagull in our combo truck.

It was about 3 or 4 in the morning, and we were heading north to find an area with cell service to do our live shots for the morning show. The storm had knocked out power to the whole parish, taking the towers out of service. It is pitch black, except for our headlights and the occasional law enforcement patrol, and I'm keeping one eye out for low hanging lines and the other on the Jeep in front of me.

Suddenly I see the unlucky bird swoop in from the left, right in front of the reporter ahead of me, who manages to knock it to the ground, but pass over it leaving it mostly unharmed. Just as I get to it, it jumps up into my grill. We removed it, after the morning lives.

[vdoguy]

I remember hearing about a news crew doing a story about a dog who saved a boy about 7 or 8 years ago. When they got done shooting this heartwarming piece and left, they ran over this poor kids dog! Fortunately, the dog survived.

10 or 11 years ago, I was driving to a job interview and a puppy ran out in front of my car. I nailed him, but he was still alive. Some guy came over and I asked him how to get to the nearest vet. With that information, I wrapped up the dog in a towel and rushed him to the vet, then went to my interview. I was sitting in the lobby of the station when one of the guys doing the interviews walked by and said "Are you all right?!" I didn't realize I had the puppy's blood all over my dress shirt. Talk about making an impression! Unfortunately, this dog didn't survive.

[Terry E. Toller]

I was driving out in the country once, doing about 70mph in my big Gran Torino. I saw a rabbit running his ass off and he was headed at a 90 degree angle to the road. Sure enough, BAM!!! He ran into my right front hubcap. Distroyed the hubcap and there were only little fuzzy peices of the rabbit to be found... Lucky rabbit's foot? Don't think so...

[Lenslinger]

Originally posted by MadMax:
The reporter was very traumatized and white as a sheet for the rest of the day.What, pray tell, does this reporter do when assigned the proverbial dead baby follow-up ? -- breathe into a paper bag?

My story doesn't concern roadkill, but it does involve squeamish reporters and culture shock.

At my first shop, it was common to have the occasional summertime pig-pickin' on the station lawn. For those unfamiliar with this fine Southern tradition, a pig pickin' involves slicing a fat hog from throat to hooha, gutting the entrails, removing thr feet and head and slow cooking that rascal for as many hours as possible. Come serving time, we rabid carnivores line up by the cooker and pick up our favorite bits of meat from the exquisitely bronzed carcass. It may not sound appetitizng on-line, but it's delicious. My old man can cook up a hog that'll make a baptist preacher kick in a stain-glass window, but I digress.

Many moons ago,during one lunchtime pig-pickin' I looked up from my heavily-laden paper plate to see our new noon anchor strolling out of the station and toward the feast. She was quite the sight, tall bueatiful and as un-country as one can get. Knowing she was a staunch vegetarian, I called her over to the closed cooker.

"Hey Harris, grab a plate!"

Ms. Faulkner did just that, smiling her thousand watt grin as she approached. When she did, I hoisted the cooker's lid and bellowed in my best hillbilly voice,

"Y'aunt some P-I-I-I-G?"

Harris recoiled in horror as the tangy sweet odor filled her ever-so attractive nostrils. Looking down, she saw the mutilated corpse of a headless hog, split down the middle and crackling in the fire's heat. As the other staffers moved in with empty plates and watering mouths, our polished noon anchor backpedaled in her designer heels, horrified at us rednecks as we slathered hot sauce on the slain swine and chased it down with sickeningly-sweet Iced Tea. Needless to say she didn't eat, in fact she soon disappeared back into the station, no doubt to call her agent and demand he rescue her from this inbred backwaters market.

These days, I'm a bit more sensitive to other people's tastes and proclivities, amd terrorizing out-of-towners with unsavory local customs is oen of many things I would no longer do. As for the Ms. Faulkner, she got her revenge, quickly leaving the employ of my small-market cess pool and doing very well for herself at KSTP. Don't know if she's still there, but wherever she's out-earning me in spades I bet she ain't eating bar-b-cue for lunch.

As for me, I eventually left that market as well. But I still enjoy some kick-ass pig whenever the mood hits, which is about once every two weeks.

Now, back to tales of roadkills past...

[WHIZkid]

Baltimore Shooter,
Where you ask? Well,,, that's about as interesting as the rest of the story... Nesseled in the foothills of the Apelachian Mountians lyies Perry County Ohio... In Southern Perry County sits the fair town of HEMLOCK!!! Yes boys and girls, a hillbilly town named for a deadly poison,,, just where you allways wanted to be hu?

I think the highlight of this town meeting we were covering was, when the voted to keep being a town, they elected their town council from a dirty, sweaty John Deer Tractor hat. THe most pressing issue before the council on this day was that the guy who plowed the town's street with his pickup didn't have insurence, and they figgured they ought to get him some just in case he had an accident while plowing.

[Videodoc]

My co-worker and I get a different (not new) vehicle every summer. One year we got Silhoutte vans. They must have some sort of slipstream thing that sucked in the birds. We had a running contest - he won 9-8, but only because he sped up to get a pheasant flying straight away from him (it was in season after all). I nailed a deer with his the next year. With the miles we log, it's inevitable to hit something.

[2000lux]

Not TV related but... Back in college I was riding shotgun in a 20' moving truck when it hit a small bird (it was bright yellow and a few other colors). Some how it got stuck in a wind shield wiper! The girl driving freakd out and started screetching, but managed to keep the truck on the road. I yelled, "Turn on the wipers!" She did and a few strokes later it finally fell off.

Sad, but funny. :)

[ January 22, 2005, 03:02 AM: Message edited by: 2000lux ]

[Baltimore Shooter]

Hemlock, Perry County Ohio...I'll make sure I take a detour around that place the next time I go through Ohio.

Electing a town council from a John Deer hat...we shoulda tried that with the Presidential election, maybe we would have had better results.

Warren

[WHIZkid]

Balt.Shooter,
THat's ok,, the next town over in Perry County,, NewStraitsville holds an anual moonshine festival.

Not to high jack this thread, but,,, Jess,,, 'member your little one person band excursion down there??? Care to share?

[MadMax]

Lenslinger,

I'd take her any day on a "dead baby folo". She's damn good when talking to the bereaved family. I guess its a lack of adjustment to country livin' here.

Now I wouldn't take her on a story about workin' cattle (i.e. cutting their balls off) or about the local fishing hole drying up because of the drought.

She's the kind of person that you could chase around the newsroom with a snake or worm, but won't bat an eye at interviewing the family of the recently deceased.

WHIZkid,
Perry county sounds familiar, isn't the town of Jackson there, or mabe its Lexington? I bet I made a few trips round there during my college days in Athens. I figure I would have heard of the moonshine festival before now tho.

[<NewsguyMark>]

Deer X 2...
THe first one I was coming back from a story about a town (actualy a wide spot in the road) that was having a town meeting as to weather to be a town, or disolve into the township. A town in which everyone over the age of consent had "sommer teeth"... Fortuneately for the truck, the deer's hoofs slipped out from under it when it jumped he gard rail, and it went under the truck. After a Deputy dispached the poor thing, a shirtless, shoeless, bib-overall wearing gentleman(?) came running from his mobil home waving his licens in the air yelling "I'm a hunter, can I keep that?"
Deer X 2...

I can hear the banjos now...

[JumpCut]

Lets see...I've hit, Kangaroos, Rabbits, Birds, Foxs, Snakes, Lizards, Frogs and a cat or two and thats all that I can remember. I'm sure there there are other things.

The kangaroos are the ones that can cause some serious damage.

BTW I live in country Australia. Wildlife everywhere.

[ January 23, 2005, 06:47 AM: Message edited by: JumpCut ]

[WHIZkid]

MadMax
You're thingking of NewLexington, the county seat of PC,,, and then Junction City just outside of NL...
I imagine you came up StRt 13, to 93??? Just as you roll into town, at the Ace Hardwear wach for the town's cop checking your speed, then make a right at one of the town's 4 traffic lights, go past the car dealer, then another right at the courthouse, then there's a PizzaHut, DairyMart, CVS, McDonald's, Panjamart, an AutoZone, the highschool, and you're through the town!

And isn't navagaitng PC an adventure? Very few of the roads are marked. I once got directions from a Deputy who said "make a left at the rock that looks like a bear"