A deer was put down after being rescued from the icy waters of the Grand River on Monday.
It happened in a section of the river near Sawmill Road, downstream of Conestogo.
Firefighters were called to the scene at 11:15 a.m. It’s not clear how long the deer had been marooned in the water for by that point.
The first person to spot it was Meghan O’Brien, who had let her German shepherd Henrik out for a walk about half an hour earlier.
She had heard the dog barking from the direction of the river, as well as another sound she didn’t recognize, and went out with her sister to investigate.
“We found him and a little doe out in the middle of the river,” she said.
O’Brien isn’t sure if Henrik had chased the deer into the water, or if it had already been there and the dog had simply been curious.
She and her sister went into the river and brought Henrik back to safety. He seemed to be none the worse for wear.
A few minutes later, firefighters showed up and tried to get at the deer with an Argo, a made-in-Waterloo Region vehicle often used for water rescues.
When the Argo became stuck in the ice, Woolwich Fire captain Joel Martin took matters into his own hands.
“I walked in and went across the ice, lifted the thing out and carried it to shore,” he said.
“I’ve never carried a live deer like that before.”
Martin and the other volunteer firefighters at the scene found that the deer was badly injured. It was taken to the Kitchener-Waterloo Humane Society to be euthanized.
It was the first ice rescue any Woolwich firefighters had performed since 12 of them received training on proper procedures last year.
With reporting by Abigail Bimman
