Bucks man tackles charging deer at hair salon
Now this is definately something that you don’t hear everyday.
A deer crashes through the door of a hair salon, sending shards of glass scattering across the linoleum.
Run? Scream? Not for Randy Goepfert.
“He was charging right at my son, so I decked him,” Goepfert said today, about an hour after he and 11-year-old Tyler Goepfert were surprised while paying for a haircut.
“The only thing I could do, I grabbed him by the neck and slammed him to the ground,” the Richland Township man said.
In a suburbia-meets-wilderness moment, a whitetail buck shattered ? literally ? an everyday scene at Holiday Hair in Quakertown Plaza near traffic-clogged Route 309, leaving a blood-strewn floor, scattered hair products, a broken door and an euthanized deer.
Nine-year-old William Frei was waiting for his haircut when he heard a bang at the window behind his head just before noon. Seconds later, the deer came through the door feet from where he sat.
“I was just sitting there minding my own business, playing a video game,” said Frei, a Haycock Elementary School third-grader. “It crashed through the window and me and my mom jumped onto a chair.”
In the human world, fashion waits for no one, and Frei spoke as his hair was being cut by a stylist — despite the havoc only shortly before.
Goepfert said he felt he had no choice but to tackle the whitetail. With students in Quakertown area schools out for an in-service day, there were four children in the salon, as well as three hairdressers and two mothers, he said.
After bringing the deer down, Goepfert said, he planted himself on top of it and choked it, hoping to keep it under wraps until authorities arrived. Despite back problems that recently required surgery, he took a few kicks before the deer struggled away.
“I weigh 225 pounds and he threw me right off,” Goepfert said. “I couldn’t believe that they’re that strong an animal.”
The deer struggled to keep its footing on the wet linoleum, but Goepfert chased it into a back room and pinned it in with chairs.
Quakertown and state police arrived, as did an officer from the Game Commission.
The deer was first tranquilized, said Quakertown Police Officer Josh Mallery. But after an examination, it was found to have a “completely” broken jaw as well as cuts to its neck, requiring it to be put down, he said.
– Reporting by Riley Yates, The Morning Call
Huh, that’s odd!
May 21st, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Tom, I thought it was strange also.
May 22nd, 2008 at 12:30 pm