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EVANSTON, Wyo. – If he didn’t have the video, Mike Sepos wouldn’t believe what happened.
“It truly was, it happened so fast,” Sepos said while snapping his finger to show how fast it happened.
That moment happened so quickly, it’s hard to see what he hit until you play his dashcam video in slow motion.
That’s when the elk was visible, standing on the side of Interstate 80 just before impact.
“The antler came through the windshield and managed to gore me in the chin,” said Sepos. “It was a very close call.”
An inch lower, and the antler would’ve got him in his neck. A little higher, and maybe he would’ve been hit in his eye.
“The fact that it hit the hardest bone, it wasn’t disastrous or fatal,” said Sepos.
Sepos and his wife were on I-80 heading home to Evanston, Wyoming, this past Saturday, when they hit the elk just after the Fawcett exit, near mile marker 189 in Summit County.
“We had cruise control on, so it’s 80 mph speed limit there,” he said. “We were just cruising.”
Whoa. @KSL5TV at 6. pic.twitter.com/38ixPfcHR9
— Alex Cabrero (@KSL_AlexCabrero) September 9, 2020
At that speed, you’d almost expect to see more damage to their van.
Yes, the windshield was smashed, the front end was damaged and the airbag was blown out.
However, when you watch the video of the impact and see Sepos skid almost completely in a circle, somehow, the van didn’t tip over.
“I was on the brakes, I think, when I hit it and it just skidded to a stop,” he said.
Other drivers stopped to help while the van itself called 911.
“I couldn’t find my phone and my wife was in a little bit of shock,” said Sepos. “All of a sudden I hear, this is Summit County dispatch, has there been an accident?”
Sepos and his wife were OK and able to walk out of the van.
“Yeah, I got seven stitches in the chin. They just glued my hand, that was just a little slice there,” he said. “I also had some bruising from the airbag, but we’re OK.”
If that close call with the elk wasn’t enough, just a couple of days later, heavy winds knocked over a tree in his front yard.
But instead of falling into the house, it fell the other way. Two close calls in only two days.
“Yeah, it was kind of scary. We were truly blessed in a lot of ways,” said Sepos.
Sepos saved the piece of antler that came through the windshield and hit his chin.
Along with the video, he has proof of what happened.
Even though he still can’t really believe he wasn’t even injured further.
“It was truly a miracle,” said Sepos.
