Professor of German Dr. David Dowdy struck a large deer on his way to work Monday on Kanan Road.
By Joann Groff
Assistant News Editor
Dr. David Dowdey has been driving the same route to work every day for 20 years. This is the first time he’s ever hit a deer.
Dowdey, a professor of German at Pepperdine, was cruising at about 40 mph down Cornell, a street bridging Kanan Road and Mulholland Drive, when the unthinkable happened. At about 7:25 a.m. Monday, Dowdey was terrified when a “deer about as big as a horse” leaped from the brush on the side of the road right into his car’s path.
“I put on the brake, but by then, it was done,” Dowdey said. “There was not a moment — it happened instantly. There was no chance to honk the horn or slow down. It just leaped right onto the road in front of me.”
Dowdey slammed into the deer, which slid up onto his hood, cracking the windshield. Fortunately, Dowdey was not hurt.
“Not one scratch or bruise,” he said. “I was shaken and terrified and very distracted. It left me unnerved for the rest of the day.”
Luckily, Shannon Latson, an administrative assistant at the Center of International Studies and Language, came driving up the same road right after the accident. She stopped to help and was able to give Dowdey a ride to work, as his car was not drivable.
“Thanks be to God (she) came up just about three minutes behind me,” Dowdey said. “I told her she was my Good Samaritan.”
Dowdey’s Mercedes sedan is still under repair, and damages have not been completely assessed. He said he expects his insurance will have to cover quite a bit of money — it was towed away with the grill forced in, the hood bent up, the radiator pushed in and a cracked windshield.
Detective Hugh Whaler of the Lost Hills Sheriff’s Department said he sees about one car versus deer accident each month, and they may be on the rise.
Whaler reported that two patrol cars were involved in accidents involving deer in just the past month. Whaler also pointed out that another serious accident occurred Tuesday, in which the deer broke through the window of a car on Malibu Canyon Road near Pepperdine. Dowdey said he drove by it on his way to work.
Whaler said Dowdey is lucky — serious injury is always a possibility when beast and machine collide.
“I’ve seen people get seriously hurt from (these accidents),” Whaler said. “People don’t realize what can happen when the weight of a deer is compounded with the speed of the vehicle. Usually the deer loses out, but people can be seriously injured, especially when the deer comes through the windshield.”
In this deer’s case, Dowdey said he staggered in the middle of the road, and then hobbled back into the brush. And as far as the windshield, only a few shards fell on Dowdey and his car.
“In 20 years, I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said. “It was a total shock.”
September 18, 2003
