Oh, deer — area man gets surprise visitor

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ARMOUR — A surprised 10-point buck and a shocked civil engineer stood toe-to-toe in downtown Armour Wednesday afternoon and both flinched.

Alan Church, 59, the owner of APC Engineering at 715 Main St., said he was sitting at his computer at 4:45 p.m. when a huge 5-by-5 buck exploded through the front window of his office.

“I think he had his directions wrong,” Church said, tongue-incheek. “He was trying to jump though the taxidermist’s window (next door) and he jumped through mine.”

That business, A Tail for Tales Taxidermy, “had a display of deer antlers and other stuffed creatures,” Church said.

He said his office’s 6-foot-by-8-foot plate glass window had a Christmas tree display backed with a blue plastic tarp. The tarp was hung to maintain heat as he remodeled his office.

“There was just the Christmas tree, and the gifts of the Magi. There was nothing intimidating for wildlife.”

Church was sitting behind the tarp working at his computer when the buck slammed through the glass.

“All of a sudden, there was this enormous explosion,” he said. “It was like a battering ram.”

Church’s first thought was that a car had jumped the curb and smashed into his building.

“Lo and behold, a buck deer with his horns down went flying by, about 6 inches away from my head, and into the office.”

“I was unprepared for such an event,” said Church.

Church, a veteran, said he had no weapons.

“I had no sidearm, no rifle, not even a baseball bat,” he said. “The buck put his head down, looked at me and started to go for me.”

Church said he quickly jumped into an adjoining room. The deer turned and left the way he came in, and headed north on Main Street, leaving only patches of deer hair and saliva behind.

There was no blood, so the buck apparently was not injured, Church said. After regaining his composure, Church patched the glass, which had been replaced within the past two years. He said he planned to have the same company replace the window again. “This time, I’ll ask for the deer-proof glass,” he said. Armour Police Chief Neal Moad said the oddball report was called in by someone who witnessed the event at a business across the street. “(Moad) thought it was a prank,” said Church, but the damage soon convinced Moad the report was true. The entire episode took less than a minute, said Moad, who took an accident report for insurance purposes.

He said the only other event that came close was the time a doe ran through the plate glass window of the bank in Corsica, and into the vault.

Which was only right, Moad said.

“She was just looking for more doe.”

Tags: our towns, life, updates, armour, deer