NEVADA CITY, CA – A driver thought he had hit and killed a coyote, only to find it alive and stuck in his car grill eight hours later!

Brother and sister Daniel and Tevyn East took a long road trip from Boulder to move into an artists community in California. On the Utah-Nevada border, Daniel noticed some coyotes running alongside the road. Suddenly, one darted out and the car hit it.

“It was a big thud,” Tevyn said. “We were trying to figure out what we should do, stop and look for it or — Daniel assumed we had done some real damage and it was instantly killed.” The two decided to to keep driving.

After about eight hours, they finally pulled into North San Juan, to find fur coming out of the front of the car.

Tevyn explained, “I was trying to keep some distance. Our assumption was it was part of the coyote — it didn’t register it was the whole animal.” As Daniel tried to remove it, it flinched!

Take a look at what they found:

The coyote had only two minor scrapes. The plans were to return it to the wild in Utah, however, it managed to bend part of its cage back and escape!