There are a certain number of uncommon but not unheard-of moving obstacles that one can expect to encounter when driving on Australian roads: rabbits, cane toads, wallabies, the occasional bonnet-crumpling roo. Hitting something in your car is always going to be a shock, but at least if you hit a bunny on a South Australian highway you’d be at least a tiny bit prepared for it.
But a horse?
Mark Rose, a 50-year-old bloke from the Gold Coast, was driving back from the shops at around 7:30 last night, when he collided with a horse on Beaudesert-Nerang Road. The roaming equine had escaped from a nearby property, and gave Rose just seconds to react before impact.
The collision pretty much totalled the car, with the horse somehow managing to not only smash the windscreen but tear the whole roof open.
Nicole Rose, Mark’s wife, told ABC Radio:
“The fact that he’s walked out is nothing short of a miracle really. The only section of the car that wasn’t crushed in was where he was sitting.“
Photo: Queensland Police Service.
Remarkably, Rose only copped minor grazes on his hands, despite the whole car being crushed around him. His door was jammed shut, but tradies (the true angels among us) who were also driving the same stretch of road dragged him out of the wreck through a window.
What’s the moral of this story? Expect the unexpected? Beware hoofed vagrants stalking the highways? Keep your damn horses penned in properly?
Maybe we should just thank our lucky stars for quick-thinking tradespeople, and agree never to drive through this wilderness again. (P.S. The horse died. RIP.)
Source: ABC.
Image: Bojack Horseman / Netflix.
