"We're done," woman told family as a deer flew toward the windshield 

By TIM O'BRIEN, Staff writer

The deer shattered the windshield. The five passengers had no time to scream. 

But it wasn't until after the family pulled over and Sherman reached into the cargo area to get a blanket and paper towels that she found the doe inside the SUV. It had soared past two front-seat and three back-seat passengers, but caused only minor cuts and bruises.

 "How we survived this is beyond me," Sherman said. "I looked at my boyfriend, and he looked at me. We were both covered in blood."

 The accident happened at 7:30 p.m. Saturday along Route 32. Sherman's family spotted two deer crossing on the other side of the road. A Ford Focus swerved to avoid one deer, but struck the second and sent it airborne and directly at the family's Chevy Tahoe.

The pregnant doe's fetus also was found in the cargo area.

Part of the windshield landed in the cargo area, too. Sherman said nobody in the SUV remembers ducking.

"They were amazingly lucky," Coeymans Hollow Fire Chief Steve Payne said.

The two people in the Ford Focus were unhurt.

Every year, thousands of New Yorkers strike deer on the state's highways, but it is rare for the animal to end up inside the vehicles, said state Department of Transportation spokeswoman Carol Breen.

 "I've got 35 years in and I've only had a few," said Trooper Maureen Tuffey, spokeswoman for the State Police.

 Sherman was a front-seat passenger. Her boyfriend, Howard McNab, was the driver.

In the back seat were Sherman's two daughters and her mother. Her daughter Kalyn, 15, received stitches under her right eyebrow. Her other child, Shantel, 16, had only scratches to her cheek. Sherman's mother, Joyce Hayes, had a small scratch and a bruise under her right eye.

Sherman, a nurse, suffered cuts to the left side of her face and received stitches. "It missed my carotid artery by an eighth of an inch," she said.