R.I.P. Sam
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amyk479 — 17 years ago(August 21, 2008 11:21 PM)
Our thoughts and Prayers to him and his family
Grizzly Adams Star's Wife Dies After Motorbike Tragedy
21 August 2008 6:28 PM, PDT | From wenn.com | See recent WENN news
Grizzly Adams star Dan Hagerty had to pull the plug on his wife's life support system after medics told him she "was gone" after a freak motorbike accident left her with extensive brain stem damage and massive internal bleeding.
The actor was golfing in Florida on 10 August when he heard of the tragedy from his pregnant daughter, and flew home to Los Angeles to be with Samantha, his wife of over 20 years, and their family.
She had been riding back from a dinner date without a helmet when she hit a deer and was thrown from her bike, according to American publication the Globe.
The 53-year-old was airlifted to UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles but medics insisted nothing could be done for her.
Hagerty tells the tabloid, "The doctors told me the bad news. The Sam we loved was gone. They were keeping a fragile shell of her alive.
"It was the hardest, most heartbreaking decision I've ever had to make, to tell the doctors to let my beautiful Sam slip away into her long sleep. I wept like a child."
And Hagerty, who himself spent days in a coma after a bike accident in 1991, fears his wife's death will overshadow the birth of his daughter Megan's son - his first grandchild.
He adds, "I know he'll look like his grandmother and that will probably break my sore heart all over again."
Missing Doctor Who -
doorkeeper — 17 years ago(September 14, 2008 11:50 PM)
Very sad to hear.
Deers have to be the stupidest thing in the animal kingdom.
Last year I'm mowing a back portion of my property, it was a part that had been too wet to mow for about two months or so and this part usually gets cut once a month and sure enough by the time it got dried out enough to mow, the Johnson grass was taller than me and the majority of the water grass was at least 18" high. I used to cut stuff this tall many times before at my parents place and this height isn't a problem for a farm tractor with a brush hog, but you sometimes have to cut it twice in a criss-cross pattern to get it all cut down and not simply knocked over.
So, I'm about half way through it and a darn deer jumps up all the sudden out of nowhere and hits the hood of the tractor broadside, gets knocked on its ass and gets up again, now if it would have moved less than 2' to the right it would have had a clear path out, but no, this time it's eyeing where I'm sitting and the damn thing belts me a good one! Deers are mighty quick and I just barely had a chance to start to get off when it knocked me clean off the tractor and bent the steering wheel on it's shaft, plus it dented up the hood pretty good too. I suppose it's a good thing I didn't have my seatbelt on at the time (since I was just slowly mowing a flat area) or I would have really gotten the snot knocked out of me.
I'm pretty sure the darn thing tinkled on me when it hit me! I guess it was laying down in the tall grass and planning on just hiding out there until all the noise was gone, but when I finally got too close for comfort it bolted. As it hit me I saw a brown flash, saw it's eyes wide open, and WHAM, off the tractor I go and we're both sprawled on the ground. And, no, it wasn't me who tinkled on myself! (at least I don't think so and I'm sticking to that story) Oddly enough, my foot took the worst of it. I think it stomped on it when it jumped up to run off after knocking me off the tractor. I lost the nail on my big toe and then managed to get it infected due to the missing nail. It figures, as I own about 8 pair of steel toe boots that I always wear when working in my barns bec5b4ause of all the heavy equipment there. They have saved my toes many times. I just never thought I needed to be wearing them while mowing grass! Either way, it was not something I would have ever expected while just minding my own business mowing the back part of my property!
At the time I wish I had thought about taking a picture with my phone as I was laying on the ground wondering if the dopey deer stomped on my foot or what, but to be honest, I just wasn't thinking all that well at the time. Now I really have to wonder about those stories I have heard about guys bagging a deer by hand. My brother would tell me 'All you gotta do to hunt deer at my place is to walk outside with a hammer.' Ha, that deer is probably off bragging to the other deer that he almost bagged a guy on a tractor!
It always amazes me why an animal will run TOWARD the threat.. and not away. Come to think about it I've had squirrels, rabbits and possums that like to see if they can 'beat the tire' too. Back in high school I used to trap some to subsidize my paper route income and we'd always get possum when trying for raccoon or fox. The darn pelt from a possum wouldn't even bring 50 cents back then, but we'd go ahead and take some. Anyway, you could absolutely beat a possum on the head with a bat until your arms were worn out and it would just get up and walk off. But, show them a car tire and they're dead as a door knob. But, alas, I never seemed16d0 to have a car tire out in the woods with me when trapping.
I have to admit I don't see wild animals as particularly bright. But, maybe I just have some kind of 'animal magnetism'. A couple of weeks after the deer incident I was riding on a remote area of our property in an old Army Jeep and was driving through some tall grass and brush that was considerably taller than the roof. I was just creeping along since I couldn't see anything past the hood of the Jeep. We pushed through into a clearing and came upon about 5 or 6 absolutely HUGE wild turkeys. There is no way they didn't hear me coming because this thing doesn't even have a muffler on it. Anyway, they scattered off to one side into tall brush except for one particularly dumb one. It took off zig zagging in a dead run and ran right smack into the front of the Jeep! What a dumb bird! It made a considerable "clunk" when it hit but got right back up and finally ran off into the brush.