Urban Legend Or Real Story?
Dean
Everybody periodically gets email of jokes and political commentary and such that has been forwarded from person to person to person. Someday someone's going to do a study on that stuff. I usually don't reprint thigns like that, but I got the following from my stepdad (who's from North Dakota) and I found it too interesting:
That was the entire email (although I reformatted it a smidge). I did some Googling and couldn't find anything to either confirm or debunk this story. North Dakota's a small enough state it's possible this never made it anywhere but email forwarded around by some folks in North Dakota. It's kind of funny. I wonder if it's true? It doesn't look like a photoshop to me, and the missing feet would seem to belie that (they probably got cut off by the train and it's unlikely a photoshopper would think to do that. Or so I'd guess).Otter Tail Power Company received a call from a customer saying:
"My power is out. When you come to fix it be sure to bring a truck with a tall enough bucket to remove the deer".
The customer service rep, prudently trying to gather information to help diagnose the problem asked, "What deer"?
The customer replied "There is a deer on top of one of the electric poles on Hiway 2 about 1/2 mile west of Leeds, North Dakota. The service rep tried desperately to pull herself together and not laugh in front of the customer and replied" We'll dispatch someone right away to investigate the power outage. Thank you for the call".
Upon completion of the call, the customer service rep proceeded to share the funny story with her coworkers in the office and they all had a good laugh.
Well, lo and behold, the serviceman who repaired the problem stopped by the customer service office the following day with these pictures.
Sure enough, the deer had been hit by a train & landed on top of a distribution feeder pole!
Unbelievable!!!!!
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- Urban Legend Or Real Story?
- Dakota Thanksgiving
Anyway, a google search turns up a few stories like this, this, and of course Snopes which confirms the pictures are real but who knows about the story.
I suppose the picture could be real and taken by some hoaxters with a whole lot of time on their hands after they used a cherry picker to drag the deer up there.
It was incredible. I was driving a little Geo Tracker, and going about 60 when I struck. It was deer season, early evening, dark, icy, and I assume the deer had been kicked up by hunters. There were 2 small does, one smack in the middle of each interstate lane, so I didn't bother trying to avoid them.
I broadsided the one in my lane, hitting it smack dead center. If it had been a bigger deer, I probably would have been killed when I cut its legs out from under it and it crashed through the windshield, but it was just tall enough that I got some good lift on it as I struck it, and I swear it flew almost straight up and a little to the left. It must have had a vertical flight at least 15 feet high before coming down and landing in the ditch in the median.
The car was as totalled as the deer, but I bought it back from the insurance company and with a little creative bodywork, new headlights and radiator and a little other miscellaneous work, it ran like a top again. I'm still driving it today. And I learned that sometimes deer CAN fly.
http://www.snopes.com/photos/poledeer.asp
As far as animals getting stuck in powerlines, a moose got stuck in a set of lines outside of Fairbanks, where I lived before North Dakota. Details can be found here:
http://www.joe-ks.com/archives_oct2004/Wired_Moose.htm
In remote locations like Alaska power companies lay out lines for miles and then "pull" them taught. The moose in the link above got its horns stuck in the wires and was "hung" as the power companies tightened the lines.
Description: Very deer-like, furry, shy, BUT NOT afraid of heights much like the heights one might encounter say climbing a tree or being violently throttled to the top of power lines by a GODDAMN BULLET TRAIN!!!
Last seen: Frolicking near power lines hunting for berries.
Contact: Tim the Soldier ASAP - we really need the meat this winter.
Kind of makes you wonder when the same picture is used for two different stories.