It’s been a warmer-than-usual winter in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, and a young deer found out the hard way.
On Monday, local firefighters saved the deer from an icy fate after they received a call from the RCMP. The distressed deer had broken through thin ice and was struggling to swim in the creek by South Railway Street East.
Once they arrived on scene, two firefighters with the city’s water rescue team crawled onto the ice with a rope attaching them to shore. The others sat on land to help guide them back.
“We were able to get her up on the ice, and then with a rope, pull [the deer] to the side,” Fire Chief Denis Pilon told Swift Current Online. “She was very hypothermic and wasn’t able to stand or move.”
Luckily, the rescue was relatively quick. According to reports, the firefighters had the deer out of the water and on land in just 10 minutes.
Tired from thrashing around in the water, the rescued deer was too weak to walk, so they wrapped her in clothing and blankets. Once she was made comfortable, it didn’t take long for her to recover.
“After about 45 minutes of being covered in blankets to warm up, we removed the blankets and [the deer] jumped up and ran off,” the Swift Current Fire Department wrote on their Facebook Page.
Chief Pilon is advising Swift Current residents to stay off the ice. A female white-tailed deer can weigh anywhere between 85 and 200 pounds, so if it can fall through the ice, anyone can.
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