Runner Knocked Out by Flying Deer: 'Im Surprised I Made it Out Alive'

ASHBURN, Va. — vehicle hitting an animal is not unusual, but Krystine Rivera's collision with a deer qualifies as nothing less than bizarre. 

Rivera was jogging on a path near the Dulles Greenway when an SUV driven by a 71-year-old woman struck a deer and sent it flying — right on top of Rivera, according to an account of the accident in The Washington Post.

Rivera, 27, remembers only that she was running one minute and then waking up in an ambulance the next, the Post reported. A paramedic told her he needed to cut off her running shirt because it was covered in deer blood.

“That’s when I knew a deer was part of this,” Rivera told the paper.

The Loudoun County Sheriff's Office said the deer, a buck, died at the scene and that the driver was treated at Inova Loudoun Hospital and released.

Rivera told the paper she suffered a concussion, a cut to her scalp and a bruise to her right knee.

Rivera said she had run five miles Thursday and was coming to her home in Ashburn when the deer flew into her.

“I was running, then I was on the ground and then was listening to the paramedic," she said. "I’m surprised I made it out alive.”

She's not sure how she'll recount this story in the days and years to come.

“It’s hard to know where to start," she told the Post. Maybe, ‘I was out for a run one day . . . ’ No, actually I probably have to start with, ‘This really strange thing happened to me once.’ ”