“The next thing I knew my windscreen was coming into me ... I thought I was hallucinating.”
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That was the first thought for Samantha Marshall after she collided with a wallaroo in downtown Dubbo yesterday.
Such was the impact it smashed her windscreen to the steering wheel and all but wrote off her small car as she skidded to a halt.
Hailing from Mackay, where she said marsupials tend to occupy the city’s outskirts, Ms Marshall was shaken and shocked after her encounter with the close relative of the kangaroo.
“Just shock. Total shock that you would see a kangaroo in the middle of the street,” she said.
“I was a lot like ‘have they opened the zoo, where is the elephant?’”
The student of Dubbo’s Yarradumurra Centre for Aboriginal Performing and Visual Arts was on a lunch break when the collision occurred on Wingewarra Street about 1.30pm.
“I saw the kangaroo standing between two cars on the side of the road ... and sort of had a question mark in my mind ‘is that a kangaroo?’
“It’s gone over the back of my car and hit the road and then gotten back up and bounced away.
“Everybody is fine, I’ve picked out a bit of glass but that’s about the extent of it, I had two other passengers in the car with me.”
Ms Marshall was unsure of what happened immediately after the accident until people from the nearby Western Plains Cultural Centre came to assist.
“It wasn’t the sound of an accident, like if you crash your car there’s the sound of that crunch, there was no crunch,” she said.
While wallaroos are typically smaller than kangaroos the damage to Ms Marshall’s car left no doubt she was lucky to escape serious injury.
“If I’d been travelling at speed it would have gone through my windscreen,” she said.
“(It) smashed my total windscreen ... to the steering wheel, it hit with that much force. Knocked the roof racks and roof basket off the top my car which were then launched down the street.
“It stood with its head to the height of my car ... and solid as a man in its body.”
After reports the wallaroo was seen near Dubbo City Council chambers a ranger and Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Service (WIRES) volunteers tracked the injured animal to Church Street.
The ranger said the animal would be put down for humane reasons.
For Ms Marshall it was an experience she would remember well after farwelling Dubbo.
“I’ve had my fair share of crazy driving experiences before ... but never a kangaroo in the middle of the road,” she said.
If you encounter an injured native animal please phone WIRES on 1300 094 737.
