'Dead' deer wakes up in trunk, surprises driver

It's that time of year in Wisconsin when car-deer accidents spike as the animals move around searching for mates.

So when a 59-year-old man in Adams County hit and killed a deer last week, he did what many Wisconsinites would do — he put it in his trunk to take home for the delicious venison.

But before he could return home, the deer woke up.

Like the Monty Python sketch — "I'm not dead yet!" — the deer was not yet ready to go gently into the night.

The motorist contacted the Adams County Sheriff's Department around 7:25 p.m. Thursday and when Deputy Brian Loewenhagen arrived on the scene in Easton Township near Grand Marsh, about seven miles southeast of the central Wisconsin communities of Adams-Friendship, his dashboard camera recorded the scene.

Loewenhagen talked to the motorist for about half a minute before the man gingerly opened his trunk. The deer moved and the motorist pulled it out of the trunk. A few seconds later the deer bounded into the woods on shaky legs.

Each year tens of thousands of Wisconsin motorists report collisions with deer in addition to countless run-ins that aren't reported because the damage wasn't bad enough or drivers don't want to finagle with their insurance companies for repairs. But this one time, apparently, the deer got the upper hand. Or hoof.

Adams County Sheriff's Department posted the incident the next morning on its Facebook page with a photo of actors Chris Farley and David Spade in a car in a scene from the movie "Tommy Boy" with a deer in their back seat.

So this happened last night ...

"Caller states he hit a deer earlier and thought it was deceased. He states he put the deer into the back of his vehicle, but once he arrived home the deer was alive and kicking..."

(The deer refused to give a statement and ran into the woods.)

The Facebook page was updated a few hours later with the footage from Loewenhagen's squad camera. Turns out Loewenhagen is no stranger to unusual calls.

You may remember our Deputy Brian Loewenhagen from previous posts. He was the Deputy who arrested the Intoxicated driver with the beer battered fish fry excuse.

Things are never boring when Brian is working.

The Sheriff's Department's Facebook posts ends with #DeerPlayingPossum and also #ThanksForTheRide.