It’s been a year since the Interstate 35W bridge collapsed during a Wednesday evening rush hour, killing 13 and injuring 145. Memorials including songs and prayers will mark the 1-year anniversary of the I-35W bridge collapse Friday. At 6:05 p.m., the time the bridge fell, there will be nothing but silence.

Please view the below pictures with respect for the dead and injured.

Sphere: Related Content

Thanks to MOOSE from Deer Hunting Nation

I had this idea that I was going to rope a deer, put it in a stall, feed it up on corn for a couple of weeks, then kill it and eat it. The first step in this adventure was getting a deer. I figured that, since they congregate at my cattle feeder and do not seem to have much fear of me when we are there (a bold one will sometimes come right up and sniff at the bags of feed while I am in the back of the truck not 4 feet away), it should not be difficult to rope one, get up to it and toss a bag over its head (to calm it down) then hog tie it and transport it home.

I filled the cattle feeder then hid down at the end with my rope. The cattle, having seen the roping thing before, stayed well back. They were not having any of it. After about 20 minutes, my deer showed up — 3 of them. I picked out a likely looking one, stepped out from the end of the feeder, and threw my rope. The deer just stood there and stared at me.

I wrapped the rope around my waist and twisted the end so I would have a good hold. The deer still just stood and stared at me, but you could tell it was mildly concerned about the whole rope situation. I took a step towards it…it took a step away. I put a little tension on the rope and then received an education. The first thing that I learned is that, while a deer may just stand there looking at you funny while you rope it, they are spurred to action when you start pulling on that rope.

That deer EXPLODED.

That thing ran and bucked and twisted and pulled. There was no controlling it and certainly no getting close to it. As it jerked me off my feet and started dragging me across the ground, it occurred to me that having a deer on a rope was not nearly as good an idea as I had originally imagined.

A brief 10 minutes later, it was tired and not nearly as quick to jerk me off my feet and drag me when I managed to get up. It took me a few minutes to realize this, since I was mostly blinded by the blood flowing out of the big gash in my head. At that point, I had lost my taste for corn-fed venison. I just wanted to get that devil creature off the end of that rope.

I figured if I just let it go with the rope hanging around its neck, it would likely die slowly and painfully somewhere. At the time, there was no love at all between me and that deer. At that moment, I hated the thing, and I would venture a guess that the feeling was mutual.

Despite the gash in my head and the several large knots where I had cleverly arrested the deer’s momentum by bracing my head against various large rocks as it dragged me across the ground, I didn’t want the deer to have it suffer a slow death, so I managed to get it lined back up in between my truck and the feeder. I got it to back in there and I started moving up so I could get my rope back.

Did you know that deer bite? They do! I never in a million years would have thought that a deer would bite somebody, so I was very surprised when I reached up there to grab that rope and the deer grabbed hold of my wrist. Now, when a deer bites you, it is not like being bit by a horse where they just bite you and then let go. A deer bites you and shakes its head –almost like a pit bull. They bite HARD and it hurts.

The proper thing to do when a deer bites you is probably to freeze and draw back slowly. I tried screaming and shaking instead. My method was ineffective. It seems like the deer was biting and shaking for several minutes, but it was likely only several seconds.

I, being smarter than a deer (though you may be questioning that claim by now) tricked it.

While I kept it busy tearing the bejesus out of my right arm, I reached up with my left hand and pulled that rope loose. That was when I got my final lesson in deer behavior for the day.

Deer will strike at you with their front feet. They rear right up on their back feet and strike right about head and shoulder level, and their hooves are surprisingly sharp.

I learned a long time ago that, when an animal — like a horse –strikes at you with their hooves and you can’t get away easily, the best thing to do is try to make a loud noise and make an aggressive move towards the animal. This will usually cause them to back down a bit so you can escape. This was not a horse. This was a deer, so obviously, such trickery would not work. In the course of a millisecond, I devised a different strategy.

I screamed like a woman and tried to turn and run.

The reason I had always been told NOT to try to turn and run from a horse that paws at you is that there is a good chance that it will hit you in the back of the head. Deer may not be so different from horses after all, besides being twice as strong and 3 times as evil, because the second I turned to run, it hit me right in the back of the head and knocked me down.

Now, when a deer paws at you and knocks you down, it does not immediately leave. I suspect it does not recognize that the danger has passed. What they do instead is paw your back and jump up and down on you while you are lying there crying like a little girl and covering your head.

I finally managed to crawl under the truck and the deer went away.

Sphere: Related Content

Two massive bucks square off in a battle to the death. Deer commonly fight but rarely are these events captured on video. After watching this video it reminded me of another famous fight between a Deer and a bow hunter. The difference is that the bow hunter got owned by the Deer, but the techniques were nearly identical

Find more videos like this on DEER HUNTING NATION

Personally, I believe this is a training video for Deer Hunting Man combatants. Please review the video above and then watch below as these techniques are used in actual Deer Hunter extreme fighting.

Sphere: Related Content

Two people were killed when their motorcycle struck a deer in Wisconsin. The accident threw both passengers off the bike, unfortunately neither were wearing a helmet. One of the passengers landed on the shoulder and later died from head injuries. The other landed in the middle of the road and was later struck and killed by oncoming traffic.

Alcohol was not a factor in the accident. The area where the crash occurred was “pitch black” at the time. “There were no stars out, no street lights, no artificial lights, no moon visible, it was pitch black,” officials said.

The driver likely had little time to react before hitting the deer. He’s going down the road and probably the last thing he’d anticipate, especially this time of year, is a deer jumping out.

Sphere: Related Content

Posted: 10:44 PM Jul 2, 2008

A peaceful motorcycle ride through the Grimes County countryside came to an abrupt halt Wednesday afternoon when a rider collided with a deer.

Spring resident Michael Frederick was air lifted to Herman Memorial Hospital in The Woodlands. The extent of his injuries is unknown.

Frederick was riding with two friends on FM 149 near Anderson when the accident occurred. He was knocked off his motorcycle, then accidentally struck by the front wheel of his friend’s motorcycle.

Neither of the other two riders was injured. The deer was killed instantly.

Sphere: Related Content