Downtown store owner run over by herd of deer

T. J. ROYAL

One Main Street business owner in Tarboro was trampled by a pack of deer Saturday, but avoided serious injury and enjoyed a laugh later about the experience.

Michelle Brewer, co-owner of Brewer's Fine Jewelry with her husband Kenny, was on the receiving end of the experience with the herd of deer.

Brewer, 46, explained that at around 9:50 a.m. Saturday, she went to open the front doors of her business. At first, one deer passed by, which she added she had "never seen before" along Main Street in the 25 years her husband and she have run the store.

Then, Brewer said, came the rest of a herd of "good-sized does" that took up the whole of the sidewalk.

"I couldn't move to the left or the right" because the deer were spread out so much as they passed her store, she said.

"I missed Santa, but got the reindeer" on Saturday, she added.

Brewer doesn't remember actually getting stepped on by them. But she vividly recalled being at eye-level with the herd before she was taken down to the concrete as they passed through.

"I saw the fear in their eyes, and they saw the fear in mine. They were probably just as scared of me as I was of them. ... I guess it's a good thing you can't remember everything."

Brewer said she was told by others that one deer kicked her "three or four feet" into the air, and then the rest of the herd trampled over her.

The same deer herd would go on to cause another disturbance at The Fountains at The Albemarle, where one caused damage when it crashed through an office window.

By the time the deer passed, her husband and other Main Street business owners came out to check on her condition. Based on their reactions, she said it appeared to be worse than she imagined.

With Kenny in tears with concern, Brewer said that "everybody stood around me. I knew then that it must've been bad, because of the crowd."

Kenny said his wife's face had "swollen up immediately," but that she didn't need to spend any time in the hospital because of her injuries. The physical mementos left by the deer included two bruises on the right side of her face, and "a hoof print in my leg," she said.

Since then, several people have come by the store to check on her condition for themselves and even to share a laugh.

"The stampede didn't hit us on Black Friday, it came the day after," she quipped Wednesday.

Her two sons, Jordan,19, and Evan, 15, heard about her run-in with the deer from friends before she even had a chance to tell them, she said.

"They didn't believe me at first" when she finally had a chance to speak with them later that day, she said.

Brewer added that when she becomes a grandparent, her sons can tell their kids that indeed, "grandmother did get run over by reindeer" before Christmas this year.

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