and then I read this.

AP story

'You hit a what?' SUV nearly slams into elephant

By SEAN MURPHY

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) –– It's not unusual to see a deer or a cow crossing Oklahoma's rural highways. But an elephant?

An Oklahoma couple driving home from church nearly slammed into a giant pachyderm that had escaped from a nearby circus late Wednesday.

"Didn't have time to hit the brakes. The elephant blended in with the road," driver Bill Carpenter said Thursday. "At the very last second I said 'elephant!'"

Carpenter, 68, said he swerved his SUV at the last second and ended up sideswiping the 29-year-old female Asian elephant on U.S. 81 in Enid, about 80 miles north of Oklahoma City.

"So help me Hanna, had I hit that elephant, not swerved, it would have knocked it off its legs, and it would have landed right on top of us," he said. "We'd have been history."

The couple, who own a wheat farm, weren't injured. But the 8-foot, 4,500-pound elephant was being examined Thursday for a broken tusk and a leg wound. A local veterinarian said it appeared to have escaped major injury.

"I thought this can't be happening. Out here you could hit a deer or a cow, but this can't be happening. The good Lord was with us," Carpenter said. The elephant's tusk punched through the side of the SUV, tearing up sheet metal.

After sideswiping the elephant, his wife, Deena, flagged some people down and used their cell phone to call police.

"The dispatcher didn't believe her: 'You hit a what?'" he said. "I told my wife, I don't know whether to cry or laugh."

Enid veterinarian Dr. Dwight Olson said the elephant was hiding in some bushes just off the highway when he arrived shortly after the accident. Handlers from the circus were able to calm it down, and Olson cleaned the leg wound and gave it some pain killer.

The elephant was taken Thursday to the veterinary school at Oklahoma State University for a follow-up exam.

"I don't believe there's a broken bone, but I don't have an X-ray room big enough to examine it," Olson said.

The elephant had escaped from the Family Fun Circus at the Garfield County Fairgrounds earlier Wednesday after something spooked it while it was being loaded into a truck with another elephant, Olson said.

A booking agent for the circus, Rachael Bellman, said she was unaware the incident, and a telephone message left with circus officials wasn't immediately returned.

Carpenter joked about being involved in such a bizarre accident on what is usually a peaceful church night.

"I don't know what was in the wine, but it must have been pretty strong," he said.

I don't know why that makes me laugh, but the mental image is priceless!

 

Maxwell Smart: Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
The Chief: I don't know. Were you thinking, "Holy shit, holy shit, a swordfish almost went through my head"? If so, then yes.

Are pachyderms covered on any insurance policies offered in the US?

Quite a number of years ago (I was just a kid), an escaped elephant was living quite happily out in the Texas hill country. Lived there for about a year before someone located it and they caught it.

I used to work with a guy who hit a buffalo! He lived in the country and was on his way into work one morning...weather was overcast and foggy. He didn't see it until a second or two before impact. I think it had broken through a ranchers fence and wandered out on to the highway. Fortunately, he was in a rental car (Jeep Liberty or Cherokee) since his truck was in the shop. The Jeep was totalled, friend uninjured. The buffalo was dispatched at the scene. I bet the rental car company had never heard that excuse before, "I hit a buffalo and totalled your car!"

We should transplant ephalents to take care of the car population.

You would think one would see an 8 foot tall elephant in the road.

Ask the guys who hunt them. Its SCARY how something that big san be almost invisible in terrain.....of course a frickin ROAD is hardly terrain but I guess the color could kind of blend


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Carpenter was/is 68 years old, I doubt his vision is as good as darkcharisma's, and at NIGHT I can see() how he didn't see it until the last second.

Comedy fucking GOLD!

and I'm just finging out about this now? well, next time theres a runaway elephant in town some one call me