911 call released from South Dakota attorney general’s fatal hit and run

Republican told dispatcher: 'Yeah … It could be’ a deer, after hitting a 55-year-old man last month

Jason Ravnsborg, South Dakota’s attorney general, who is at the centre of an investigation into a fatal collision (AP)

South Dakota officials have released the 911 call that state attorney general Jason Ravnsborg made when he hit and killed a pedestrian last month, as investigations continue into the collision.

Mr Ravnsborg’s chief of staff, Timothy Bormann, had described the 12 September crash as "a tragic accident”, while blood samples taken the next day showed the attorney general had no blood alcohol content.

The victim, 55 year-old Joseph Boever, suffered extensive injuries "both internally and externally", Craig Price, South Dakota’s public safety secretary said at a news conference on Tuesday, CNN reported.

He added that a complete autopsy report will take several weeks, as investigators and crash reconstruction experts continue their work into the circumstances surrounding the crash.

That announcement came as Mr Ravnsborg’s 911 call was released, in which the attorney general told a dispatcher that he had hit "something" in the middle of the road, the night he killed Mr Boever.

Mr Ravnsborg said to the dispatcher that he was uninjured “but my car sure as hell is”.

Then, asked whether he had hit a deer on the road, Mr Ravnsborg said "I have no idea" before adding "it could be".

A public safety department statement said last month that the attorney general had initially told police he had hit a deer, before Mr Boever's body was discovered the following morning.

The victim’s family have since called into question how Mr Ravnsborg could have mistaken colliding with a deer instead of a man, CBS News reported.

Questions have also been raised into the effectiveness of conducting an alcohol blood test on the attorney general some 15 hours after the collision.

Asked by reporters why a blood sample wasn't taken the night of the crash, Mr Price, who is overseeing the investigation, said "I'm not going to speculate on the work of others.

"I know that once our office became involved, which was the next day ... we worked efficiently to go ahead and get that information," he told reporters.

South Dakota governor Kirsti Noem, who promised a transparent investigation into the Republican attorney general, added on Tuesday that the news conference could only provide as "much information as we can that would be appropriate to release at this time."