TRENTON, Ont. — The Quinte town of Frankford, Ont. near Trenton, proudly declares itself the ‘Wild Turkey Capital of Ontario.’ One such turkey, however, nearly cost professional driver Andy Hutcheson his life.

Hutcheson was travelling eastbound along the 401 near Trenton at 7:30 a.m. March 21, when he saw a black streak out of his peripheral vision followed immediately by the explosion of glass. Hutcheson told Trucknews.com he looked down and saw a 25-lb turkey thrashing around on the floor of his cab, the passenger side of his windshield completely destroyed.

Hutcheson pulled the Kenworth T800 to the side of the road and “bailed out of the truck,” to take stock of the situation. Realizing his phone was still in the cab, he climbed back in to retrieve it and saw the turkey was still badly injured on the floor of the cab.

Having never encountered such a situation, Hutcheson called his boss at Gunter Transportation, a flatdeck trucking company out of Princeton, Ont. Did they believe the predicament he was in?

“Not really, at first,” Hutcheson admitted. “They thought I was joking, but they believed me after a bit.”

It took about half an hour for the turkey to expire from its injuries and then Hutcheson was able to reclaim his truck and drive slowly up the road where he came across a police officer. The cop took a few pictures and said there wasn’t much else he could do.

“He took a couple pictures himself, because he said he’d never seen such a thing,” Hutcheson recalled. Finally, Hutcheson had his windshield and wiper blades replaced before making his delivery returning home with the turkey. He’s going to have the tail made into a fan as a reminder of the experience. Of course, he doesn’t need a keepsake to remind him of what happened.

“I’ll never forget it,” he said. “I know that it would’ve killed me if it hit me. Glass and feathers were everywhere. It weighed about 25 lbs.”

It took some good driving on Hutcheson’s part to maintain control of the vehicle when the oversized bird intruded upon his driving space.

“My moose bumper didn’t do me much good,” he quipped.