Deer knocks down door at dentist’s house
Published 4:39 pm Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Greenville dentist Marvin Hewlett had a surprise encounter with a deer Saturday morning.
And he wasn’t out hunting.
Hewlett said he was watching television at his home at 226 N. College St. when a thunderous explosion shook his residence.
“It rattled the whole house,” recalled Hewlett.
Hewlett raced into living room to find himself face-to-face with something he had only seen in movies.
A deer – an eight-point male deer Hewlett said hunters told him later – had just crashed through the door and was standing in his living room. A table had been overturned and several lamps knocked over.
“I can’t describe it…I thought I was in Jumanji,” said Hewlett, referencing the 1995 Robin Williams movie where animals invade a home via a magical board game. “It was bleeding from its mouth, so I don’t know if it had been hurt by a car and was injured before it came through the door or not. I thought I was dreaming.”
The deer then rampaged through Hewlett’s home, first trying to exit through the kitchen, but the windows there rebuffed it, said Hewlett. It gored chairs, knocked pictures from the walls, and left blood all along the walls and cabinets in its wake, according to Hewlett.
“I’ve never seen so much blood in my life,” he said.
The deer finally stopped where it had entered, in Hewlett’s living room, but the doctor was unable to get it to exit the home. He called 911 and Greenville police responded. The deer, meanwhile, stood bleeding and stoic in Hewlett’s living room.
“It had to have stood there for a good 10 minutes,” he said.
Greenville police were forced to shoot the deer.
“I didn’t want it going on another rampage,” he said. “Kudos to the police. They were cool and efficient.”
Hewlett said he still has no idea where the deer came from. Deer have frequently been spotted in several subdivisions in Greenville and along the Greenville bypass, but most are seen near heavily wooded areas. There are no woods near Hewlett’s home, which sits on the corner of Oak St. and heavily trafficked College St.
“I don’t know how it got into town, most especially the middle of town,” he said.
Amazingly, Hewlett said most of the damage was done to the door, which should cost “a couple of thousand dollars” to replace. He said he and his wife have been able to remove most of the blood, but he didn’t think it would ever be completely gone.
Also, Hewlett is trying to rid his residence of a group of squirrels that have taken to his roof like their own personal playground.
“Someone said you mess around with Rocky, you have to fight Bullwinkle,” Hewlett joked.