If the world were less crazy, humans and animals might live harmoniously in some Disneyesque existence with lots of tra-la-las and Mr. Bluebirds on our shoulders and whatnot. But no—it’s a deer-eat-kid world.
ROUGHING THE PASSER
In October 2009, seven-year-old Brandon Hiles was playing football with his friend, nine-year-old Wyatt Pugh, when an errant pass sent the ball into the woods in their Wintersville, Ohio, neighborhood. Brandon ventured into the underbrush to retrieve the ball…and found himself face to face with “Devil Deer,” a large white-tailed buck known around the neighborhood for its aggressiveness. Devil Deer charged, and Brandon tried to run but was lifted up from behind and thrown to the ground. The deer started stomping on Brandon with its powerful hooves before Wyatt came to the rescue, brandishing a big stick. “I was swinging it like I had a sword in my hand,” he later bragged. After Wyatt whacked it several times, Devil Deer ran off. Brandon was bruised but otherwise okay.
In 2009 a bush pilot in Alaska landed his 1958 Piper Cub in a remote area for a day of fishing. When he returned to the plane that evening, it had been practically dismantled: Parts of the hull were torn off, three tires were flat, and the tail section had been ripped open. The pilot knew immediately that this was the work of a bear—it was looking for food in the cargo hold, which smelled fishy from a previous trip. Unfazed, the man radioed another pilot, who flew over and dropped three tires and three rolls of duct tape. The man put his plane back together and flew home (and cleaned it thoroughly).
For two days in 2003, the rural community of Evesham, England, was under siege by a rampaging badger. One of its victims was retired BBC producer Michael Fitzgerald, who was attacked by the animal in his garage. “To hear your husband screaming in such pain,” said his wife, “it was like a horror movie.” Even police officers were no match for the badger, which reportedly weighed 30 pounds—it chased after them, forcing them to take refuge in their patrol car. Authorities called in Michael Weaver, chairman of the Worcestershire Badger Society. “In 24 years of work with badgers,” he said, “I’ve never heard of anything like this.” Weaver eventually trapped the animal under a crate, but not before it bit four more people, including two men who were heading home from a pub and a woman walking her dog. And, to make the story even more bizarre, the townspeople soon found that the badger was an escapee—named Boris—from a nearby wildlife center. Because the animal had lost its fear of humans, it had to be euthanized. “The real tragedy about Boris,” lamented Weaver, “is that it shows that people shouldn’t try to tame wildlife or treat them as pets, because they are not.”
Rain in the brain? One in five Weather Channel viewers watch for at least three hours straight.
Dozens of students at a Russellville, Alabama, elementary school were sitting in the cafeteria enjoying their lunch when all of a sudden a deer crashed through a plate-glass window and started running around the room. As kids screamed and ran away, cafeteria attendants used tables and chairs to corral the confused doe and then shooed her outside with a broom. Worried that the deer might have been rabid, the school’s principal ordered a massive cleanup: “We Cloroxed everything—tables, walls, floors, sidewalks—you name it, we Cloroxed it.” No evidence of rabies was found.
After a man went to a hospital in Leeds, England, complaining of red, watery eyes, doctors discovered “hair-like projections” stuck in the cornea of one of his eyes. How did they get there? Three weeks earlier, the man was cleaning the tank of his pet Chilean Rose tarantula when the spider blasted him in the face with a mist of “barbed hairs,” which tarantulas use as protection against predators. The doctors issued a warning: “We suggest that tarantula keepers be advised to wear eye protection when handling these animals.”
Some NY parents pay $1,000 or more on “coaches” who help their kids pass kindergarten tests.