Police officers probably encounter all kinds of unexpected situations all the time, but some officers got a very big surprise when they opened a car trunk in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Stacia Mullaney has the story of the "dead" deer who wasn't as dead as initially believed.

It all started here.

Police noticed a man sitting in his car behind the Red Roof Inn.

"Part of a normal duty for night shift officers or dayshift officers would be to check local hotels for any suspicious activity," says Lt. Stacey Geik of the Kalamazoo Dept. of Public Safety.

That's when police walked up to the car.

"The man hit the trunk release and stated that he had a dead deer in trunk," says Lt. Geik.

The man explained he'd hit the deer, assumed he killed it, and put it in the trunk to take home for dinner.

What he didn't know was the deer had other plans.

"The officer was certainly surprised, one held his ground better than the other as the video indicated haha," says Lt. Geik.

As for car-deer crashes, they happen more than you might think.

"We have one of the highest numbers in states in the U.S.," says Brent Rudolph of the Michigan DNR.

In fact, the DNR says in 2011, there were 53,592 such accidents, many in which the deer didn't spring back to life.

"If the driver wants to - they can ask for what's called a salvages permit to be able to take the deer for human consumption," Rudolph says.

But this one certainly wasn't prepared to become food.

It seems the deer was only knocked out when he was loaded into the car.

"It was very much alive, the deer ran away and was unscathed," Lt. Geik said.

But it's unclear if you could say the same for the officers.