A woman knocked off her motorbike by a deer has blamed men who had been shooting the animals too close to the road.
Saranne Durrant, 33, from Ormesby, and two friends were riding their bikes around Norfolk on Saturday afternoon (January 4).
They had passed through Sheringham, Cromer and North Walsham, and were coming along Yarmouth Road approaching Dilham, when Ms Durrant saw two muntjac deer running across a field.
Her two friends had accelerated ahead of her and she slowed down, hoping to avoid the deer.
"It was just a reaction," Ms Durrant said.
One of the deer ran from the field across the road.
"But one of them decided it was going to take me out instead," Ms Durrant said.
"I went down quite hard," she added.
Ms Durrant and her bike now lay on the road, blocking both lanes and stopping traffic.
Her legs were hurting but she could move, she said.
She noticed two people in the field, next to a copse of trees set back from the road.
"They walked over. I said, 'Have you been shooting?' They said it was nothing to do with them, they picked up the deer and walked off.
"They just walked back to the forest. I heard them finishing the deer off," she said.
Ms Durrant added: "It's more than likely because they were in there shooting and it has scared them.
"They shouldn't have been shooting in a forest so close to the road."
She has been biking for two months and it was only her fifth time out riding.
"It's not put me off," she said.
Steve Potter was one of the friends out riding with Ms Durrant.
He said: "I looked back, there were queues of traffic on both sides of the road.
"People had been shooting deer in the woods.
"It infuriated me," he said.
"Should they take more care while firing that close to the roadside?"
On social media a person who had stopped after the incident and attended to Ms Durrant said: "Once I got my bearings it became clear that [people] had been shooting deer causing the deer to flee from the woods and onto the road.
"What I witnessed yesterday was dangerous, uncanny and could have caused a horrific story."
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