The deer escaped through the back of the restaurant.
By then, however, it had suffered significant injuries.
Some national retellings would later describe exactly who killed the animal, and social-media posts quickly produced different versions of the ending.
Local reporting was more careful.
Martin Assistant Police Chief Phillip Fuqua confirmed that because of the animal's injuries, it ultimately had to be put down.
Restaurant owner Alan Laderman also specifically corrected one rumor circulating online.
The deer was not euthanized inside The Grind.
That distinction mattered because by the time the footage went viral, people far from Martin were constructing their own versions of events based on only a few seconds of video.
Inside the restaurant, meanwhile, employees faced the aftermath.
A large window had been destroyed.
Broken glass was everywhere.
A customer had been injured.
And an ordinary Monday dinner had turned into the kind of event most people would never expect to experience once in their lives.
Laderman knew the injured girl's family personally.
They were neighbors.
He contacted them afterward to check on Ruby.
Her father reported that she was recovering and expected to make a full recovery.
The restaurant decided to send her flowers, balloons and gift cards.
They even added a joke to the message.
They were sorry things had gotten a little "buck wild" at The Grind.
That humor arrived only after everyone knew Ruby was going to be okay.
The timing of the incident also had a strange connection to the calendar.
It happened in mid-November.
In Tennessee, fall is a period when deer movement increases substantially.
The Tennessee Highway Patrol has repeatedly warned that November is historically one of the worst months in the state for deer-related vehicle collisions.
One reason is mating behavior.
During the fall rut, bucks move more and can become less attentive to their surroundings while searching for does.
Hunting activity can also affect movement.
The official warnings are normally directed at drivers.
On this night, however, the danger did not remain on the road.
A deer somehow ended up in the center of Martin and through a restaurant window.
If the witness account about the vehicle strike was accurate, the sequence may have been simple.
The deer entered the road.
A vehicle hit it.
The frightened animal ran.
It reached the parking lot.
Then, possibly unable to distinguish reflection from open space or simply moving in panic, it headed toward the glass.
But this remains reconstruction, not confirmed fact.
The security camera only tells us what happened once the deer entered view.
It appears outside.
It moves toward the building.
Then it disappears through the window.
The impact itself is not ambiguous.
The reason for it is.
And that uncertainty helped the footage spread.
Within days, clips from The Grind were appearing across news broadcasts and social platforms.
Millions of people who had never heard of Martin, Tennessee were suddenly watching the same few seconds.
Most viewers focused on the deer.
But many began noticing something else in the footage.
The people.
Ruby dropping away from the window.
The adults moving the children.
Employees escaping from behind the bar.
And the man who calmly opened the door at exactly the right moment.
Online viewers repeatedly singled him out.
Instead of trying to chase or restrain the animal, he gave it an exit and moved aside.
That small action may have prevented the panic inside the restaurant from lasting much longer.
But the footage also created one misleading impression.
Watching it online, the incident looks almost comedic.
A deer suddenly appears during dinner.
People scatter.
The deer runs behind the bar.
Someone opens the door.
Animal leaves.
People make "oh deer" jokes.
For Ruby and her family, though, the broken glass and eleven stitches made it much less funny in the moment.
And there was one frame in the video that showed just how close the story came to having a very different ending.