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I know it seems hard to believe, but they can be dangerous. 

Deer attacks 2 men, 7-year-old in Pulaski County

By LINDSEY WARD

Published: May 20, 2009

UPDATED: 9:23 
Monday morning Jimmy Yopp was walking across his hill top property.
    
What started out as a peaceful walk turned into a nightmare, when he realized he wasn’t alone and was being followed by a deer.
    
Yopp turned to face his stalker when, “he just give me an evil look like and he just charged me,” explained Yopp.
    
It knocked the grown man to the ground, repeatedly pounding his back.
    
Before he could get to his car the deer knocked him down two more times.

“It’d raise up and just hit me with his front hooves,” Yopp said.

“I ran and jumped up on top of my vehicle here and I thought he was going to come up on top of my hood.”

Yopp wasn’t the only one running from a deer. 

According to the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries a man and his child were attacked in this same area on Saturday morning. 

When a conservation officer came searching for the aggressive suspect on Wednesday morning he too was approached by the attacker.
    
Yopp says people may laugh when they hear he was attacked by a deer, but there’s nothing funny about fearing for your life.

“I was thinking gosh this thing’s going to kill me,” said Yopp 
    
Luckily it didn’t and Yopp will have a story of survival like none other.

I’m talking with the second man attacked by the deer.  Watch what he has to say tonight on WSLS at 11:00 p.m.

A deer attack on a man and his 7-year-old son in Pulaski County, is being investigated by the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (VDGIF).

The VDGIF says the attack happened this past Saturday, May 16th, in the Delton section of the county.  The man called the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office, who call a conservation police officer.

The officer foudn the man had a broken left arm and bruises, while the boy had a cut on his face.  The man and his son told the officer that the deer came at them in their frontyard, just after they had driven home and gotten out of the car.

The officer searched for the deer, but could not find it.

Then this past Tuesday, the Pulaski Co. Sheriff’s Office called the VDGIF about a second attack that happened on Monday.  In that case, a man told a conservation officer that he had been kicked and bitten by a deer while clearing brush on his property Monday morning.  The man did not go to a doctor until Tuesday, when he heard about the other attack.

The conservation officer spotted three deer when he interviewed the second attack victim.  Two of the deer ran off, but one circled and showed aggressive behavior toward the officer.  Then the deer approached the officer, at which point the officer shot and killed the deer.

The conservation officer called to have the deer taken to a Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services lab in Wytheville.  Tissue samples have since been sent off to the Virginia Department of Health for rabies testing.  VDIGF investigators hope to have test results by Friday.

Conservation police officers are asking people in Pulaski County if they’ve seen any unusual deer behavior, experienced a deer encounter, or are aware of deer being fed or held in captivity illegally in the area.  The VDGIF says, “Wildlife biologists in other states have observed aggressive behavior by deer in captive situations. When deer lose their natural fear of humans, they can become extremely aggressive.“