Hitting a Moose in Vermont on I-91

by Kirk M

Wednesday, April 07, 2010 at 08:44 AM EDT

We hit a moose yesterday on interstate 91 while on our way "down country". And although I was fully intending to write a long, highly descriptive account of the incident including pictures with circles and arrows--I decided not to. I'm not saying that this won't be a long post knowing how wordy I am but it's not going to be what I thought it would be.

Does anyone understand what I just wrote? If not don't worry about it--I obviously didn't.

The fact is we hit a moose that bounded onto the highway directly in front of us--plain and simple.

I was driving my trusty old ‘95 Jeep Cherokee and Laurie was beside me in the passenger seat. The whole incident from start to finish took around 5 seconds. And although hitting a moose isn't that unusual in the State of Vermont, surviving the encounter intact and without injury is. But the fact that not only was the moose able to get up and leave the scene with no apparent broken bones or even a single wound and that we were able to get back in the Jeep and continue on our journey is positively uncanny.

Don't get me wrong though, the Jeep didn't get out of the close encounter of the moose kind without injury. It was still drivable, yes. But the moose had rolled up over the Jeep's hood severely cracking the windshield (but leaving it in place) knocking off the rear view mirror in the process, taking out the passenger side view mirror, the radio antennae and the driver's side turn signal/parking light lens assembly. It also damaged the cheap plastic grill in the front and cracked the fiberglass "header" that runs along between the front of the hood and above that cheap plastic grill. The strip that has the raised letters spelling "JEEP" on it.

Now since the moose had already left the scene of the accident and my side of the windshield was still relatively clear and the front wheels were still attached and pointing in the same direction, we decided to continue on our way although I did make sure that the damaged windshield wasn't going to shred my windshield wipers into little pieces as it was raining at the time.

Once we arrived in Bradford we took the time to report the incident at the State Police barracks (which took all of 4 minutes) and then up the road we went.

The rest is pretty straight forward. Upon arriving back in Newport, I dropped Laurie off at the quilt shop and headed to my insurance agent's office. Today, the Jeep is up at the body shop and I'll probably have it back by the end of the week. The sun just came out, Laurie just got home from her day at the quilt shop, the birds are singing and everything is as it should be.

Can't complain about that one little bit.