AMBULANCE passenger Peter Kirkham had the fright of his life when being driven home from hospital last week – a deer crashed into the window.

Peter, 85, was being taken home from Musgrove Park Hospital to Minehead on Monday when the incident happened on the A358 between Crowcombe and Halsway Hill at about 5.30pm.

“I heard a bang like an explosion and saw a perfectly round hole with the deer’s head through the front passenger side, and the ambulance stopped suddenly,” said Peter, who was in the back with another ambulanceman and passenger.

“The next thing was the door opened and my daughter, who had been following behind us in her car, said she was taking me home.

“There was glass everywhere, it even got into my hospital bag, and the dead deer was laid on the verge. It was only young, there was fur and blood everywhere,” said Peter, who was going home after being treated in hospital for four days.

“I sat there shaking in my lounge when I got home. I was in a state of shock, but my daughter gave me warm drinks and I was all right. It’s taken me a little while to recover.”

Wayne Spedding, operations director for E-zec Medical Transport, which provides ambulance transport for patients to and from hospitals, said the deer had been trying to cross the road when it hit a vehicle coming the other way and was catapulted through the ambulance windscreen.

“The driver was obviously a little shook up but he did really well and reacted very professionally and looked after the patients,” he said.

“It was very sad the deer got hurt, no-one likes to see an animal hurt, but the most important thing is nobody was injured.”

He said the impact had broken the ambulance windscreen and damaged the front of the vehicle.