What they expected to be a nice fishing trip, turned into an animal rescue for these two fishermen from Utah. Bransen Jackson and his best buddy went for ice fishing on the Panguitch Lake, when they came across a baby deer in desperate need of help. The helpless creature found itself unable to move and stranded on the thin ice. But Jackson, who works as a wildland firefighter, risked his life to rescue the poor creature. His friend caught the moment on camera!
Although things looks pretty easy from the footage, it wasn’t like that as the fishermen didn’t know what to expect. The ice was thin and the deer was very scared, so it could easily hurt them making the situation even worst. But Jackson decided to take that risk in order to save the distressed animal.
“I looked over there and squinted, ‘dude, that’s a deer. We gotta go save it of course,” Jackson told 2KUTV. “So, we just slowly started making our way over there, at one point his boot actually went through a crack in the ice. So it was really thin, but I was like ‘we can’t just let this deer sit there.'”
Unable to stand on its feet, the deer was looking exhausted as the two men were approaching it. However, when they reached it, they had no idea how it would react. But Jackson tried to calm it down as he gently pick it up into his arms. But the rescue was far from over, as the ice was staring to crack under their weight.
“I was like ‘man, this might kick me if I try to pick it up,’” the firefighter says. “I picked it up and it was super calm, super docile, like it kind of understood, okay these guys are going to try and help me. But then the ice cracked a bit, and I was like, oh my gosh, and I so I just hurried up and took off for the shore and hoped for the best.’”
Fortunately, they all made it to the shores, and as soon as they reached dry land, Jackson put the one-year-old deer on the ground and it lost its way in the wild. Mission accomplished thanks to these two heroes!
You can watch more about this dramatic rescue in the video below!
