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OKLAHOMA CITY – It’s not unusual to see a deer or a cow crossing Oklahoma’s rural highways. But an elephant?
A couple driving home from church nearly slammed into a giant pachyderm that had escaped from a nearby circus late Wednesday.
“Didn’t have time to hit the brakes. The elephant blended in with the road,” driver Bill Carpenter said Thursday. “At the very last second I said, ‘Elephant!’ ”
Carpenter, 68, said he swerved his SUV at the last second and ended up sideswiping the 29-year-old female elephant on U.S. 81 in Enid, about 80 miles north of Oklahoma City.
The elephant had escaped from the Family Fun Circus at the Garfield County Fairgrounds earlier Wednesday.
The couple, who own a wheat farm, weren’t injured. But the 8-foot, 4,500-pound elephant was being examined Thursday for a broken tusk and a leg wound. A local veterinarian said it appeared to have escaped major injury.
The elephant’s tusk punched through the side of the SUV, tearing up sheet metal.
