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PROVO -- A moose landed on a car after being tranquilized by the Division of Wildlife Resources, and the college student who owns the car says he shouldn't be stuck paying for the damages.
Chris Hair was working at BYU two weeks ago when he got a call from police saying a moose on the loose had been tranquilized near his car and he needed to move it.
"They didn't actually tell me that it fell on my car. I just got there and saw the crack. I was like, ‘Oh no, what happened?'" Hair said.
After being tranquilized, the moose hit Hair's and another car, causing around $3,000 in total damage.
Hair says the DWR employees told him not to worry, that the state should take care of it. The state Risk Management Department called back, saying the DWR workers handled the situation exactly as they should have, and because it was a wild animal, it's not their fault. They say it's similar to when a car hits a deer on the road.
"If they hadn't tranquilized it, maybe it wouldn't have fallen on my car," Hair said.
Hair says he works two jobs to afford to go to school and doesn't have the money to fix his car.
He says he still parks in the same spot. "The odds of another moose coming down and landing on my car is one in a million," he said.
Hair says just a week before the moose landed on his car, a police truck hit his car in southern Utah when it was responding to a scene. He had just gotten his car fixed from that incident. In that case the state did take care of the damages.
E-mail: rjeppesen@ksl.com
