Hijacking Plot Fails

A young woman from Northern Michigan helped avert a bus hijacking by bravely blocking the attacker with her own body. The hijacking deer was killed in the mêlée. (For the record, we do not encourage beating off an attacking deer with your face.)

BEULAH — Three deer interrupted Shannon Hebert's bus ride to work and left her with a bloody face and a strange animal tale.

"A lot of people have told me that most people wouldn't believe that three deer tried jumping over a bus,” Hebert said.

Hebert, 16, was on a Benzie Bus at about 8 a.m. Friday and headed to her job at a golf course when three deer attempted to cross U.S. 31 east of Honor. One of the deer crashed into the bus.

"I didn't even know that the deer hit me,” Hebert said. "We were going up the hill and all of a sudden I just heard a big crash.”

The next thing Hebert knew, she was covered in blood and glass and a witness told her about the deer. One of the deer crashed through two passenger windows and struck Hebert in the face.

The deer-bus crash was a freak occurrence, said Benzie County Undersheriff Rory Heckman. Collisions between vehicles and deer aren't uncommon, but injuries rarely result and deer rarely attempt to jump a vehicle as large as a bus.

Heckman said the deer was a small, young buck. It hit the windshield and then ricocheted into the side of the bus and was killed.

Longtime readers of Blue Crab Boulevard know the truth, of course. The deer was not trying to jump over the bus, it was trying to hijack it for the Animal Uprising™. And worst of all, when authorities examined the remains, they found that the deer did not have exact change.