Oskar Kordus, 20-year-old defender, killed when deer crashes through windshield in Poland

Oskar Kordus, 20-year-old defender for Kania Gostyń (Polish fourth division), died Monday evening at the University Hospital in Poznań following an accident that occurred early in the morning on the DW434 ring road between Krajewice and Grabonog. A deer, catapulted by a collision with another vehicle, had crashed through the windshield of his BMW and struck him in the face.

The sequence of events unfolded shortly after 5 a.m. A first driver, at the wheel of a Volkswagen, hit the deer. The impact propelled the animal — weighing over 100 kilograms — in the opposite direction, directly onto the vehicle driven by Kordus. The first driver emerged unharmed from the collision; the footballer was found without a pulse when emergency services arrived.

Firefighters performed prolonged cardiac massage and managed to briefly restart the young man’s heart. Evacuated in absolute emergency by medical helicopter, Oskar Kordus fought for several hours at the hospital before succumbing around 10:30 p.m. to the severity of his injuries.

Trained at Warta Poznan, having passed through the prestigious Zagłębie Lubin academy and then Korona Piaski, the defender had joined Kania Gostyń last summer. His former teammates and club officials expressed “profound disbelief” at this sudden death.

This tragedy comes just days after the death of German ultramarathon cyclist Max Riese, 36, killed in a descent after hitting a deer on his bike.