Lumina keeps dieing??

I have a 96 chevy lumina with the 3.1, when i bought the car it had 170k miles on it and it chugged a little bit, i put in a reader and it said the 6th cylinder was misfiring. I replaced the plug/wire but it still continued to misfire, about a month ago i hit a deer and a wire came loose under my car back by my gas tank (their was no physical damage done at all, that was the only issue) and everything inside the car worked, everything outside worked, well, everything inside but my cig lighter. I didn't notice the wire for about a week, and lacking knowing where the wire came from, i wrapped both sides with electrical tape to keep it from shorting. Well, in the past 2 weeks the car has died 5 times, twice while driving, 3 times idling. But when it's idling and dies, doesn't make any sounds, you actually can't tell it has just died, the volts light only comes on when i first start it, is on for a few minutes, and shuts off. It just died about a half hour ago, this time was weirder though, i was driving home from putting gas into it, and the volts light was on the entire way home, and my blower motor wasn't working, until i pulled into my driveway, it shut off and the blower kicked on. I parked it, and reved the engine a little bit, and it would rev up then would cut out, then reved back up, it only did that on the higher RPMs and it was very in rhythm. But on the lower RPMs it didn't skip at all. I think it might be my alternator? But im not sure, because after it's going it's good, the two times it did die it was on cruise control at 55mph, so i stopped using cruise and it worked fine, but continues to die when it idles. I know i should have brought it to a shop, or replaced the battery, but the people in northern wisconsin can be pretty evil in the winter time with cars, they jack the prices up 50% because of winter issues here(So a battery is almost 200 bucks), and with my bills and with work being a factor i can't just leave it at a shop and wait a week for them to get around to "looking at it" and charging me 150 bucks just for a diagnosis. Anyone know anything about this occurance?

You need to have the alt, battery and cables cheked to start with, no short cut here.