Bob Otwell didn’t know what hit him.

The 54-year-old executive director of TART Trails, Inc., was injured last Thursday morning when he was struck by a deer while riding his bicycle north of Cedar.

“I never saw what hit me,” said Otwell, who is at home this week recuperating from injuries — including a broken pelvis — resulting from the midmorning collision on June 7.

He was among a group of 15 bicyclists whose day began with a ride from Traverse City to Leland. After a leisurely breakfast, the group chose a return route west of Lake Leelanau in the hills of Centerville Township.

“When you ride in a group like I do, you really trust your fellow riders,” said Otwell, who estimated bikers to be traveling at about 20 mph or a little less when the collision took place on Schomberg Road, just north of Bodus. “We usually are able to keep our distance from one another, so I was startled when something intruded into my space.”

Witnesses said the deer came from left of the bikers, ran through another rider’s bike and “T-boned” Otwell, who was in its path. Fortunately for Otwell, some of the bikers were also physicians who called for help and kept him and another injured biker calm while emergency teams responded. A North Flight emergency helicopter was dispatched to the scene, but returned to its main hub in Traverse City because of difficulty in landing the craft in high winds and the fact that local emergency vehicles were on the scene. The other injured rider, who broke a small bone in his back, was also transported via Cedar ambulance.

One of the bikers in the group, an orthopedic surgeon, told Otwell if he had to break his pelvis, he did so “nicely” with the possibility of no long-term affects. It will take an estimated six to eight weeks for his pelvic bone to heal properly.

“I should be back in good enough shape to get out there by the end of the summer,” he said.

Otwell finds it ironic that he was injured in the wide-open spaces in which he loves to ride.

“I like being able to ride to a place where the deer outnumber the cars,” Otwell said.

“I’ve heard of cases where bikes run into dogs and topple over. But I’ve never come that close to a deer.”

He didn’t know how close he really came to the animal until medical staff helped him off the table in the radiology department.

“There was some deer hair left on the table,” Otwell said.

Oddly enough, his deer accident was the fourth in the past three weeks that involved a deer and a two-wheeled vehicle. An Empire man sustained injuries when his motorcycle hit a deer on M-72 on May 29. Motorcyclists also reported minor injuries to themselves, but major damage to their cycles in separate accidents June 6 and 11. The first was located on South Lakeshore Drive and Lavassar Road, also in Centerville Township. The other was Monday in Kasson Township on Bright Road near East Kasson.

Sheriff Michael F. Oltersdorf, also a motorcycle enthusiast, said he’s never known of a non-motorized vehicle being struck by a deer.

“In 36 years, I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Oltersdorf said. “No one can remember having so many car-deer and motorcycle-deer accidents so late in the year.”

Oddly, Oltersdorf said he an Otwell lived adjacent to one another years ago near Chelsea.

“Our property bordered on one another,” he said. “There are a lot more deer up here, I guess. I’m fortunate. When you hit a 150- to 200-pound deer like that, it’s gonna hurt.”