Deer Hunter Saves Drowning Buck in Partially Frozen Lake

A deer hunter in Maine helped save a drowning buck when he spotted it treading water in a partially frozen lake.

Justin Wyman saw the struggling deer in Flagstaff Lake in Eustis Sunday while he was out salting the roads for the Department of Public Transportation.

Although he was hunting deer himself just a day earlier, when he realized the deer was in trouble, he knew he had to help.

“There was a lot of debris floating in the lake so I thought that’s what it was," Wyman told InsideEdition.com. "When I came back it was in a different place. One of the game wardens was out there so we looked through his binoculars and saw the deer.”

Wyman volunteered to go get his boat out of his garage and put some fuel in it to help rescue the distressed animal.

He then got out on the water, along with the game warden, to rescue the deer, breaking through ice with axes along the route.

“It took us 20 minutes to get to the deer,” Wyman said. “We got a rope and put [it] on the deer’s antlers and helped pull him back to shore.”

Wyman said when the animal got back to shore he was tired and laid down for a while but recovered and eventually scampered away. 

“His eyes were red and bloodshot and his ears were purple in the water but then all his color came back and he seemed fine,” Wyman said.

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