A group of students survived a harrowing car crash with a stag on the West Coast over the mid-sem break. The crash claimed most of their car’s front end, but amazingly left it intact enough to drive a further 50km to the nearest town.
On April 14, Ali was heading up the West Coast with her mates to work over the mid-sem break. Their journey went smoothly until Ali’s car hit a hawk. Spooked, they ploughed on and promptly hit a possum, the car presumably having acquired a newfound bloodlust. Little did her vicious Nissan Wingroad know that it was soon about to violently meet its match.
Ali was going 100km/h down the bush-lined highway, remarking on how crazy it was that they’d already run into two animals on the drive. It was at that moment when, emerging from the bush, a stag appeared on the road in front of them. According to Ali, nobody had any time to react, and before they knew it, the stag had taken out most of the wagon’s front end, its antlers sticking through a hole in the windshield. The stag, stunned but alive, immediately gapped it (hopefully towards Greymouth Hospital).
Ali ended up covered in glass from the shattered windscreen. Apart from the shock, though, everyone in the car was unscathed. “I reckon we handled it pretty well,” said Ren, who was riding shotgun. “I couldn't open my door because it was smashed in but Ali got out and looked at it.” With no passers-by around, they had no choice but to chance it to the nearest town, Franz Josef. The 50km journey ended up taking two and a half hours, as they slowly drove through tight, winding roads with the stag’s handiwork on their windscreen. “I couldn’t see the road through the windshield so I was sticking my head out the window the whole time,” said Ali. Passing cars would blind them as the headlights shone through the smashed windscreen, Ren added, meaning that “Whenever other cars would pass us, we just had to completely stop.”
A former mechanic at the hostel looked at Ali’s crunched car. Amazingly, despite the extensive damage, the radiator and engine were both completely fine. This was a relief to Ali, who had just serviced her car the day before. She’d also put in a new light bulb, parts of which are now probably embedded in a West Coast stag. Ultimately, although she can see the funny side of the situation, Ali’s gutted, and for good reason too: “I came here to make money, but lost a car.” Critic notes, if it is any consolation, that Ali’s totalled Nissan has a higher kill rate than many of the hunters we know.