What started as a routine trip to Newport to pick up hardware supplies Wednesday morning turned into a disaster for Tilden Spencer and his wife, Vickie, after a large turkey flew into their Chevy Trailblazer on Interstate 95, shattering the windshield and killing the turkey.
“I didn’t even see it, it just happened in a blink of the eye,” said Spencer, 50, of Clinton, as he recalled the accident Wednesday afternoon. “I saw my wife throw up her hands and I glanced over, and the next thing I knew a turkey hit the window.”
The impact from the bird — which Spencer estimated was between 15 and 20 pounds — shattered the windshield on his Trailblazer, but a plastic safety guard kept most of the glass from falling into the vehicle.
“I would have been killed if not for that safety plastic,” Spencer said. “I’m happy for that. It’s just a windshield and it’s getting replaced.”
The accident was reported at 9:30 a.m. between mile markers 156 and 157 northbound in Pittsfield. The bird was flying across the highway from east to west and hit the driver’s side of the windshield while the Spencers were in the passing lane and had just passed an 18-wheel truck.
The truck slowed down to allow Spencer to pull over about a half mile up the road.
“It happened so fast you couldn’t even see it,” Spencer said. “We weren’t hurt, thank God, just a little bit of glass shards in my fingers and stuff like that. Like I said, it was a hairy trip.”
The Trailblazer had to be towed from the scene and the windshield will have to be replaced, according to Maine State Police Trooper John York.
“It is unusual,” York said. “I mean, you can get car versus deer and car versus moose accidents, and people hit dogs and cats all the time, but there aren’t a lot of turkey accidents, even though there are plenty of them around.”
In the wake of the accident, Spencer said jokingly that he believes the state should loosen its restrictions on turkey hunting.
“There’s so many turkeys,” he said. “You can walk out my back door and see 25 to 50 every day and you can drive half a mile down the road and there’s another 25 to 50 turkeys in the field. There’s just that one I saw on the interstate and if there was more than that one I don’t know. It was the only one I saw flying and he went flying all right.”
He said he is happy he and his wife are safe, even if they will have to replace their windshield.
“We’re laughing about it now but it’s something most people don’t want to try to do,” he said.
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