A B.C. man says he has his Smart car to thank for saving his life after hitting an elk on Vancouver Island on July 14.
Chris Markevich had just left his house in Campbell River, a city on Vancouver Island's east coast, around 10:45 p.m. to pick up his wife from the airport in nearby Comox.
He had just left a gas station and was pulling on to the highway when he encountered the roughly 900-pound (400-kilogram) bull elk.
"I had turned off my high beams because another car was approaching and I was just reaching the point to turn them back on, and as I went to turn them back on then boom, elk," Markevich told CTVNews.ca in an interview.
Markevich says his windshield and front of his car caved in and his car rolled several times before landing upright on its wheels. He had been driving in the far right lane of the four lane highway and when his car stopped rolling, it was in the grassy centre median.
The elk was in the lane beside him.
"I thought at some point something was going to come through the car, impale me and I'd be done," he said, describing the aftermath of the impact.
Concerned about his car catching fire after the devastating accident, Markevich was able to extricate himself from the wreckage with concerned witnesses running up to him.
One bystander was a nurse on her way to her shift at the local hospital and she immediately went about with her first aid kit to treat his scrapes and cuts.
Paramedics soon arrived and took him to hospital.
His wife Rebecca, who had texted him from the airport wondering when he would be there, didn't believe him when he told her he was texting her from the back of an ambulance.
The hospital in Campbell River is only three blocks away from Markevich and his wife's home, so after he was released that night they simply walked there.
Markevich credits the lack of a protruding bumper on his Smart car for saving his life. When cars hit elk, the bumper forces the animal onto the hood of the car and into the windshield. He says nurses and police told him if that happened, he would've been impaled by the bull elk's antlers.
Markevich says the crash has reinforced his choice in cars.
"One thing is for sure, Smart car has a customer for life," he said.
