Just days before Christmas, Gloucester resident Lori Javier got a rather unwelcome gift: her car was struck by a deer as she was traveling along Route 14 in Mathews, near the intersection with Route 611. She said hunters were in the area running their dogs at the time of the incident.

She said the deer darted in front of her and totaled her vehicle, causing her air bags to deploy and leaving her with an injured back and a sprained hand.

Javier said she knows it is a normal occurrence for deer to run out into the roadways, but she said her accident occurred in the middle of the day before lunch.

“I don’t want to make hunters mad,” Javier said, “but I do want to let them know that this is no joke … I could have been killed.”

Lt. Scott Naff with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries said though VDGIF did not receive an official report on Javier’s particular incident, using hunting dogs is a legal method for hunting deer in most...