The deer bounded onto Highway 402, hitting the couple's motorcycle wheel.
By VERA OVANIN, SUN MEDIA
Couple survives deer-bike collision
Const. Bruce Stafford of the Middlesex OPP inspects a motorcycle after an accident which closed Highway 402 for hours yesterday afternoon. A man and wife are in hospital after the motorcycle they were on hit a deer crossing the highway. (SUSAN BRADNAM, Sun Media)
STRATHROY -- Zipping down the highway at 100 kilometres an hour, a motorcyclist has to be ready for anything.
Hitting a deer usually isn't one of those things.
But that's what happened to a London couple yesterday.
Returning from a three-day-motorcycle trip, a deer jumped in front of their bike on Highway 402 near Strathroy and struck the side of the wheel.
The couple fell from the bike, leaving the driver, 57-year-old Joseph Wyatt, with broken ribs, said OPP Sgt. John Remillard.
Wyatt was flown by helicopter to University Hospital in London, his injuries not considered life-threatening.
"He was unconscious before he was taken away but he was breathing," said Remillard. "He was breathing on the way to the hospital but with difficulty."
Wyatt's common-law wife, Gloria Smith, 57, was taken to Strathroy Hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
Collisions between deer and motor vehicles aren't uncommon in Southwestern Ontario, where hundreds occur each year.
But collisions between deer and motorcycles -- which are much smaller than cars or trucks -- are relatively rare.
Wyatt tried to avoid the deer by changing lanes, police said.
The injured deer bounded over the fence and disappeared into woods.
Between 1999 and 2003 in Ontario, 24 people died in collisions with wildlife, the Transportation Ministry says. Nearly 2,000 people were hurt.
Couple survives deer-bike collision
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Couple survives deer-bike collision
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