A Pacific West Ambulance crew responding on a medical call in the Lincoln City area Friday night had an unexpected encounter with an elk.

Shortly before 9 p.m., EMTs Steve Wallace and Brett Gnau were dispatched out of PacWest's Lincoln City office to an address on Highway 18. But as they crested a hill on U.S. Highway 101 in the Neotsu area, an elk suddenly appeared on the highway in front of them.

There was not enough time to avoid a collision, and the ambulance struck the elk. Russ Harper, executive director of PacWest, said, "Considering that I got fur all the way up the front of the ambulance, I'm guessing it was a full-sized elk."

No one in the ambulance was hurt in the crash, but the elk had to be put down because of the severity of its injuries.

Harper said that, as luck would have it, the collision involved PacWest's newest ambulance. "You never hit an elk with an old ambulance," he said. "When you go elk hunting, you use the brand new rig. It's only three or four months old."

The damage, however, was primarily just to the body work. "The frame and the chassis and the engine weren't damaged," said Harper. "It's just the front end." That ambulance has been taken out of service until repairs can be made.

As far as the medical call that Wallace and Gnau were on Friday night, "another rig was dispatched. Essentially, the call went on as it was supposed to go on," Harper said.

After the accident, the ambulance crew had to undergo a series of required tests, just to make sure they weren't impaired in any way at the time of the crash. "That's just all something we do routinely," Harper said. "I'm not anticipating any discipline with them." He added, however, that Wallace and Gnau were "really cranky" about the accident "because it's a new rig, and they're both experienced crew members ... but stuff happens."