Stranded Deer

I was driving home from work the other day and saw something interesting.  The road leading to our house is pretty straight with a wide open view out over the lake.  As I was traveling down the road I could see a lump out on the ice in front of our house.  At first it looked like a black garbage bag.  I thought that was odd, since there really wasn't any wind that day that could have blown a bag of garbage out there.  As I got closer it looked more like an animal.  Due to the dark color at first I thought it was a dog.  But, once I was close enough, the lighting changed and I could tell that it was a deer laying on the ice.  

It was only about 100 feet out from shore, but it looked to be caught in a crack in the ice.  Sure enough, once I pulled over and was looking at the deer through my telephoto lens, I could see that it had indeed fallen through a crack and its back legs looked to be stuck.  It laid there for a moment, then in a frantic flurry of kicking and heaving it tried unsuccessfully to lunge up and out of the crack. After that attempt it laid there for several minutes on the ice, its hind legs dangling in the water between the two sheets of ice.  Eventually it gave another attempt at kicking and heaving and this time it was able to pull itself back up onto the ice.  

Immediately she started running for shore, her feet scrambling for purchase on the slick ice.  She would get up a little head of steam, then slip and fall, sliding several feet before coming to a stop.  She fell 3 times before making it back to shore.  But, she did make it back and I watched her slowly walk back into the woods after setting foot on solid ground again.  She seemed to be walking okay, which was amazing considering her legs were wedged in that crack and the falls she sustained while trying to run back to shore.  Her jaw was bloody, apparently from smacking on the ice when she fell, but other than that she seemed to be fine.  It sure was an interesting thing to witness on my way home from work!