Grade 5 students at St. Breiux School were greeted by a boarded up window when they walked into class on Thursday.
At about 5 p.m. the evening before, a deer jumped through the window of the Saskatchewan school, which is located about 170 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon.
The school’s quick-thinking principal heard the commotion and immediately shut the door to the classroom, locking the deer inside until help arrived.
She then called conservation officers, who tranquilized the deer and removed it from the building within an hour.
“It’s not something that happens every day,” Kevin Garinger, director of education at the Horizon School Division, told CBC News. But he’s happy it happened when it did.
“We’re very, very thankful that no children were involved in the situation,” Garinger said. “We didn’t have to worry about their safety.”
No one was seriously harmed in the incident, including the deer, who was nicknamed “Lucy” by school staff. Lucy sustained a few small cuts from broken glass, but was otherwise in good health, so conservation officers released her back into the wild.
To reach the school, Lucy had to cross a highway and then run across the school’s sports field. According to CBC, Garinger is puzzled as to why she jumped through the window.
But this isn’t the first wildlife encounter to affect St. Brieux School. In February, parents were asked to pick up their children from school after a moose was seen roaming around the community.
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