Doctor gets surprise house call
An Evans woman woke up to an uninvited guest in her house early Thursday, and police think the culprit was a startled deer who bucked around the woman's living room before escaping.
The animal jumped through the closed window of a house on the 400 block of Trestle Lane in the Hamilton Village subdivision at about 6 a.m., said Capt. Steve Morris of the Columbia County Sheriff's Office.
"The homeowner heard a crash like glass breaking and called 911," Morris said. "Deputies responded and found traces of blood and deer hair."
Mandy Warthan, who owns the home, said she initially thought one of her dogs had broken something. She investigated and found her dogs secured in the back yard and a dining-room window broken. Thinking she was being burglarized, she said she ran back upstairs to her bedroom and called police.
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"Yeah, I was a little scared," said the 28-year-old Medical College of Georgia Hospital resident physician. "I didn't know what was going on."
Officers arrived minutes later, and that's when they found traces of deer hair, Warthan said.
"It took the police only four minutes to get here, but it felt like an hour," she said. "They checked all around the inside of the house and the outside, but didn't find anyone."
The deer shattered the window and knocked over some items before apparently jumping back through the same broken window.
"We found blood and fur around the window and some chairs knocked underneath the table," Warthan said. "The officers said they could tell it was a deer from the fur and the smell - and it smelled."
Deputies were unable to locate the animal, but based on the amount of blood, Morris believes the deer suffered only minor cuts and scrapes.