911 Operator: “You Hit a What?”

The dangers of hitting a frighten animal on a dark roadway usually limit itself to deer, dogs or cats. But that’s not the experience an Oklahoman couple had on their way back from church Thursday evening.

"Didn't have time to hit the brakes. The elephant blended in with the road," driver Bill Carpenter explained Thursday. "At the very last second I said 'elephant!'"

That’s right folks. Elephant.

This pachyderm had escaped and was on the lam from a nearby circus. Carpenter, 68, and his wife Denna, barely avoided a major catastrophe.

"So help me Hanna, had I hit that elephant, not swerved, it would have knocked it off its legs, and it would have landed right on top of us," Carpenter recalled after the incident. "We'd have been history."

The Carpenter’s SUV swerved at the last moment and sideswiped the 4,500lb (2,040 kiligram) 8-foot beast on the highway in Enid, about 100 miles north of Oklahoma City.

The 29-year-old, female Asian elephant suffered a broken tusk and a wound to her leg. The SUV didn’t fair any better. A tusk shredded the sheet metal on the side of the vehicle.

The call for emergency help got the expected response. Carpenter said, "The dispatcher didn't believe her: 'You hit a what? I told my wife, I don't know whether to cry or laugh."

The elephant was immediately cared for by a local veterinarian in Enid then transported to Oklahoma State University Veterinarian School for observation.