Cyclist smashed off his bike by deer in New Forest
A CYCLIST was rushed to hospital with cracked ribs after being knocked off his bike when three deer crashed into him.
Iain Gee was left battered and bruised after his encounter as he was riding back from Sway train station at 9.30pm having just got off a train from London.
Iain was doing around 15mph down a hill on South Sway Road when he saw the eyes of three deer ahead of him.
He said: “I literally saw their eyes lit up and the next I was on them, there was no time to stop.
“They hit me and I was off, splat on the road. My front wheel was buckled, and I was left with a bleeding head and my ribs were in terrible pain.
“The deer ran off unhurt. It was such a shock I didn’t really know what had happened – I just remember seeing the hindquarters of one right by my front wheel.”
A car carrying two young men stopped to help him and rang emergency services.
Iain said: “I was in such shock I didn’t get their names, but I’d like to thank them as they were so good to me. They stayed with me until my partner Gail came and the police turned up.
“The police said there was a long wait for ambulances, so one of the chaps drove me home while the other one helped Gail walk back to our house nearby with the bike.”
Gail took Iain to Southampton General Hospital where he was found to have two cracked ribs and a bruised lung.
He said: “They couldn’t do much for me apart from dose me up with painkillers.”
Iain used to work for Southwest Trains and said he has cycled to and from the train station without incident for over 21 years until the deer crash on 31st March.
He joked: “I blame the railway company because the train was 40 minutes late. If it had been on time, I would probably have never even seen any deer.”
He added: “The chances of me being hit by a deer are probably one in a billion chance. I just got in their way, and they weren’t stopping.
“My only consolation is that I was wearing a decent jacket which didn’t get damaged at all.”