A Group of Good Samaritans Rescue a Struggling Deer From an Icy Lake in a Rowboat

Courtesy of Kelly Blood

A party of good Samaritans ventured out onto a frozen lake in Steuben County, Indiana, to rescue a baby deer that had fallen through the ice and was struggling to survive. Thanks to their efforts, the deer was chaperoned to safety.

Courtesy of Colben Steury

Kelly Blood, a member of the group that helped rescue the deer, told ABC21 that others spotted the deer on Hamilton Lake on Dec. 6 and sounded the alarm on social media. Then she and her family members came to the struggling fawn’s rescue by taking a rowboat and paddled onto the lake with a length of rope.

Kelly posted footage of the adventurous rescue on Facebook and tagged her father, Thomas, and fiancé, Brice Gordon, to the post.

(Courtesy of Kelly Blood)

“I don’t know what you did today, but we rescued an exhausted young deer that had fallen through the ice and couldn’t get back over the sea wall,” she wrote. The rescue party named the deer “Hamilton” after the lake.

Two of the men in the group had reached the deer in their rowboat, secured her with the length of rope, and gently heaved her into the boat before swaddling her in a blanket to keep warm.

Courtesy of Colben Steury

After a few hours of the ordeal, Blood wrote on her Facebook page that the deer was “warming up under heat lamps on a bed of straw.”

According to a Facebook post by Colben Steury, who was also a part of the rescue, the group took the fawn to a nearby Fish Creek Trail, hoping to set her free, but she wasn’t fit enough to stand. Thus they instead wrapped her up and drove her in a pickup truck to Double H Farms in Hamilton, a site that houses a number of species and a petting zoo, to recover.

Courtesy of Colben Steury

“[S]he is recuperating under a heat lamp and in an open stall,” Steury added. “Thank you for everyone that came out and [helped] us get her out of the lake and into safety.”

Courtesy of Colben Steury

On the afternoon of Dec. 7, Hester Stouder of Double H Farms reported that the fawn was well enough to be released.

“Thank you to everyone who rescued her,” Stouder told The Herald Republican. “We were happy to house her until she was well enough to get back out on her own.”

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