A deer, likely spooked by dogs from woods surrounding busy North Windham, found itself on Route 302 last Saturday afternoon confused, lost and desperate for a way out.

The deer – a 100-pound, 1-year-old doe – was first seen by Thomas Lau, owner of the Fortune Cookie Chinese restaurant near the intersection of routes 115 and 302. According to Lau, the deer jumped through a tempered glass door in the dining section of the restaurant at about 3:20 p.m.

“I heard the door just collapse. I thought someone threw a rock through it. That’s what it sounded like. So I jumped over the counter and saw this deer running around the whole dining room,” Lau said.

Not able to handle the tiled floor in the dining area, the deer skated around the room for about seven or eight minutes, Lau estimates. There were no diners at the time. The deer then made its way out of the dining room and investigated the food preparation area behind a counter where customers place orders.

“She went right under the counter. I think she was wondering what smelled so good,” Lau said.

After a few minutes, the deer nosed its way out another door of the restaurant. The deer passed by a manager smoking outside Cumberland Farms and made its way over to Goodwill, the next place it was seen.

At Goodwill, the deer leaped through a plate glass window and into the foyer. It then rammed through another plate glass window and into the main store. With several shoppers inside at the time, Goodwill staff ushered customers outside.

Goodwill management declined to comment on the deer’s bizarre intrusion.

According to Game Warden Jason Luce, who was called to the scene by Windham police, the deer was “bleeding over every inch of its body” by the time he got to Goodwill, and had flailed around the store trying to escape. In the process, the deer’s blood got on clothing and the floor at Goodwill. Within hours, Portland Glass and Servicemaster were on scene cleaning up the mess.

“When they get frightened, it’s like a human, they have a fight-or-flight reaction. It was just trying to get away. It was just very frightened. You could see the fear in its eyes,” Luce said.

When Luce got to the store, the deer was completely covered in blood and was splayed in an aisle exhausted. After conferring with Windham police, Luce used a catch pole to take hold of the deer to drag it out the back door, where he euthanized it.

“We couldn’t shoot it in the middle of the store,” Luce said. “The only humane thing to do was to take it out back.”

Luce said the deer was probably “spooked” out of the woods behind the North Windham Shopping Center by a dog. He has no idea why the deer would crash through three windows. He said the deer probably saw a reflection of trees in the windows and thought it was a way out from the hectic, urban environment of North Windham.

“For the last two or three days, I’ve been trying to figure out what made it do that,” Luce said. “I have no proof, but I feel a dog probably chased it out from behind the shopping center. I don’t know what else would make it do this.”

Windham resident David Sparks, former Westbrook animal control officer, said the deer intrusion is a result of the large southern Maine deer population.

“As the deer population grows, it’s not surprising to see something like this happen,” Sparks said. “It sounds like the deer just panicked. Everywhere it looked was buildings and people and cars.”