It is not everyday a deer springs in front of a bicycle and the cyclist is able to capture the entire breakneck action on his/her camera. A group of five cyclists from North Carolina were out for their 45 mile cycling routine and the incident took place in Matthews where a deer came out of nowhere and sprinted right across a cyclist, only to be stuck ghastly by an Audi fraction of moment later.
This ‘flying deer’ incident took place on Wednesday when Peter Flur, Missie Mansfield and their three friends were returning from their 45 mile journey down from Brace Family YMCA, passing through the Union County. As Peter Flur from Charlotte, aged 53, recorded, he always has his best dash cam attached on front and back end of the bike, not as protective measure from any accident but to capture video evidence in case his or the fellow members’ lives are somehow endangered by any motorist. Flur always wanted to show others how his camera could help in enlightening how an accident occurs and its after effect.
Little did he know that his mounted camera which is often used as car camera would capture something so swift and so unusual! The cyclists’ group ascended to the Forest Lawn Drive of northbound lane which is in close vicinity of Antioch Church Intersection and that is when Flur’s camera caught the deer sprinting across the road from the right side in front of Mansfield, the lead cyclist and within split-seconds, was hit by a dark-tinted Audi Sedan that was running in opposite direction.
For any dash camera, capturing such a violent collision in relative frequency is very rare but, thanks to Flur, it was clearly seen how the Audi hurled the deer through air and back across double yellow line. Another cyclist named Melonie Norris even ducked her head to safeguard herself from not getting knocked by the deer while keeping the bicycle steady.
Obviously, Flur was dumbstruck with the sudden turn of events and for first few moments could not understand what the flying thing was during the fast occurring of the accident while Mansfield was recorded to scream right before the collision.
The group was out for supporting Norris in her final major training ride before the Ironman World Championship on next weekend in Hawaii. After cycling a few distance the group pulled off on the side, composed for several moments and headed back to the Y. Flur said that the deer might not survive as he thought the Audi did not stop after the collision. After they continued the journey, Missy pointed out that Flur had the whole action captured on his camera.
Before returning home Flur was not sure how much his camera could have captured as his camera was mounted below handlebars and he had all sorts of cinematic reminiscences having resemblance to the collision. After discussion with fellow riders, he decided to post the clear and detailed video on YouTube from his computer and it got more than ten thousand views.
Flur considers himself and his fellows lucky that none got hurt by the horned animal and how cyclists keep on encountering weird incidents. As for making the video public, he said he was still in shock to think what he saw in a flash and how he had the entire action captured on his camera.