BRAY COUPLE’S LUCKY ESCAPE AFTER COLLISION WITH STAG ON N11
BRAY COUPLE ESCAPE INJURY BUT CAR DESTROYED ON N11
A BRAY couple had a narrow escape when they hit a stag while driving along the N11 at Delgany last Sunday morning.
‘It was like hitting a wall,’ said Ralph Murray, who was driving at the time. His wife was a passenger in the car.
The front of the car was ‘destroyed’ in the collision, and the vehicle was removed from the scene.
Mr Murray, a former Bray Town Overseer, has urged people to be very careful when travelling, particularly along woodland stretches. He said that at this time of year, in rutting season, the stags are very unpredictable.
The Bray man was travelling southbound in the outside lane when the animal jumped down from a raised grass margin in the middle of the dual carriageway at 10.45 a.m. on Sunday.
‘ This thing just fell from the sky. It jumped off the bank, I went straight into him at full impact,’ he said.
The speed limit is 100km/h on that stretch of road, and Ralph was driving at somewhere between 80 and 90km/h, he said.
He moved his car into the hard shoulder on the opposite side of the road. Then Ralph realised that the big animal in the road could pose a danger to any oncoming motorists.
He got out and dragged the dead stag into the hard shoulder. ‘It was a full grown stag,’ said Ralph. A number of cars pulled up to offer assistance. Mr Murray said that a woman who had been travelling behind the Murrays’ car was quite distressed and kept saying ‘you could do nothing’.
‘ The whole car disintegrated,’ said Ralph. He said that the front of the Yaris is fairly high and he and his wife were fortunate to escape without injury.
‘I don’t know how it’s not a tragedy the more I think of it,’ said Ralph. ‘ This thing happened in a millisecond.’
He and his wife were both wearing their seatbelts, the road was not busy, and he was not travelling at an excessive speed – all factors which he believes contributed to their survival.
Mr Murray said that Wicklow is currently overrun with deer. He believes that there has been an explosion in deer numbers, partly due to less harsh winters in recent years.