Happy ending to a sad story (3 photos)

SooToday.com has received the this letter and photo yesterday from a loyal reader with a caring heart:

************************* Hello,

I thought the readers might like this story a little.

Earlier this morning (around 2:30 a.m.) I heard a car skid and a loud 'thunk.'

Opening up my window, at first I smelled a strong skunk smell and thought that's what they had hit.

There was a van pulled over on the side of the road.

I realized then it was unlikely.

The noise I'd heard when the animal was hit suggested it was larger.

I heard them talking, someone wanted to 'take it home' and then I heard loud, wet, thumping noises.

I realized they were trying to put this animal out of its pain.

When they drove away, I decided to check this out for myself.

Grabbing my trusty dog Logan for protection, as I live out on Old Garden and you never know with animals, I headed outside.

What I found was sad.

A deer, quite large, was laying in the ditch.

At first look, I thought for sure it was dead.

No one would leave a suffering animal like that.

But after watching it for a little over five seconds, I realized it was breathing, quite heavily.

I ran back to my house, and grabbed a camera.

Upon returning to the deer, I snapped some pictures.

It was making occasional attempts to get up, but would fall back down after.

I couldn't see any broken legs, I figured it was just the ditch, being muddy and filled with a couple inches of dirty water, and the fact that the deer was weak and wounded from whatever blunt object the people were using to hit it.

I was talking to the deer the whole time, calmly trying to get it up.

At one point, it looked at me and heaved a sigh.

This was when I knew I had to help it.

I went back to my house again, this time recruiting my brother Terry for help.

I had heard some howling earlier, from behind my house (we have a lot of land behind us), and decided I needed some form of protection.

I armed him with a BB rifle, and I grabbed a lead rope from my garage, after I got on a pair of coveralls and some big rubber boots.

We headed out to the deer.

I got my brother to stand on the side of the road, while I got in the ditch with the deer.

It was breathing slowly.

It didn't even give me a glance.

Putting the rope around the base of its neck, I pulled lightly, trying to induce more movement.

It tried to get up a few times, but wasn't successful.

Finally, I ended up making a makeshift rope halter with the lead line.

Finally, after pulling, it got up.

It eyed me wearily, then tried to bound up the steep side of the ditch, away from me.

It was weak though, and had lost blood.

It fell down, again.

I put the rope around its neck, trying to pull it up again, but it didn't work.

I decided I wanted to grab a real halter from my garage.

Just as I climbed out of the ditch, it stood up again.

Standing there, it looked at me and my brother, then started to slowly bound away from us.

It went through the ditch, then up a less steep side, and into the trees.

By now, it was 3:30 a.m. I was covered in dirt, and some deer blood, and rain was sprinkling down.

But I couldn't have been happier.

I've attached some of the pictures I took of the deer, when I had the camera.

- Janet Fisher

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