All fair questions.
I was riding alone on a nice sunny day. I had just pushed hard to PR up a small-ish mountain, and was coasting down. Cadence was zero, but it was steep. I come around a gentle right hand turn, and on the left is a hay field with a barbed wire fence. Two large deer (both does, no antlers involved) pop out from under the fence. They look right (to see me), pause, and then dart into the road. The one furthest from me went first, followed by the second one.
I had no time to brake, nor would brakes have mattered. There was no way to guess what they would do (move, not move, move quickly, move slowly, etc.). They waited until there was no evasive action that could be taken… and then they bolted.
I plowed the front wheel into the first deer. I then went human shoulder (left) to deer shoulder (right) with the second deer. Then I met the rough country tarmac sliding downhill on my left side. It was a low-side — not a high side crash.
I lay there for some period of time (did not lose consciousness) and made sure I was not paralyzed. By the time I looked up, there were no deer. I assume they survived … I do not know what became of them but I’m sure they were fine.
I then managed to stand up and pull myself and my bike out of the road, lest some speeder on a country road run me over.
At first, I thought (hoped) it was a minor crash with only minor injuries like a broken rib or two, and so instead of calling for an ambulance I called a friend who lives 30+ mins away to come get me (my wife was at home with the 4 day old infant). Before he could get there, a guy in a truck stopped to ask if I was OK. When I could not speak, or stand up, he realized i was not ok. As luck would have it, he had a bike rack on his truck, and he loaded my bike and me up and took me (at my request) to the nearest urgent care.
The urgent care cut off my clothes and then said —- go to the ER. By then my friend who lived 30 mins away arrived, and took me to the ER.
I don’t know how the deer ultimately fared, only that they weren’t dead on the road. At least, i doubt that they had 4 broken ribs, a punctured lung, a concussion (2nd that year), and a whole bunch of road rash. Spent one night in the hospital and had to really, really push to go home.
Amazingly, the bike was fine. 100% fine. There was a piece of deer hair stuck in the left side of the front thru axle which I only just removed.
Post-concussion syndrome is definitely real. I had headaches and positional vertigo for 3+ months after this. It got to be really bad. Fortunately, I was able to finally PT my way out of it by around month 3.5 post injury.
I got a LOT of grief for riding after this happened. Folks wanted me to stop, or only ride indoors. But this was like getting hit by lightning — not a predictable event and not something caused by anything I did that was negligent. I now try to avoid riding alone, try to let at least my wife know what general route I’m on, and try to leave a little extra margin whenever possible. I’m probably more of a pain in the ass on group rides now in making sure people are safe.
For those who think off-road riding is “safer” — yeah, maybe it is, but keep in mind there are plenty of ways to get hurt off-road and when you do, fewer people will be there to help you. I ride plenty of gravel and MTB and I think it is wishful thinking to consider it somehow “safer” — even with respect to cars, when I encounter cars on a gravel ride its often just as sketchy if not more sketchy than on most paved roads.
For sure, when the speeds get fast now, I’m often thinking about what would happen if I hit something like that again — not a good thought.
Anyway, happy to be alive and not paralyzed. Looking back on it, I don’t know that there is any evasive action I could have taken that would have mattered, or any lesson to be learned perhaps other than “don’t ride alone.”