Fishermen Rescue Deer Swimming in Long Island Sound

When Rob Kurdy and his buddies went shark fishing in the Long Island Sound on Saturday, they didn’t expect to come back with a deer.

About six miles off shore, they found a buck swimming in circles and shaking, according to WTNH News. The six-pointer buck didn’t look like it would make it to shore in the 58-degree water so the men decided to give it a helping hand.

“You could see it shivering. It was barely staying afloat, kind of just going in circles,” Kurdy told WTNH. “[We] actually got a piece of rope and were able to stick the rope around the antlers real gently, and corral the deer towards the boat.”

The crew tied the buck to the side of the boat and started to head back to shore at a speed of two miles-per-hour, all the while being sure not to tug on the deer too hard.

Since they couldn’t pull up right to the shore, and since the buck would drown if let go, Kurdy put on a life jacket, jumped in the water, and swam the buck to shore himself.

“It’s a life,” he said. “I’m not going to let him drown. He was out in the middle of nowhere, shivering and freezing, so we all said, ‘We just can’t let it drown.’ It was the right thing to do.”

Once on shore, the buck rested for about three hours, during which people brought blankets to comfort the shivering deer. It eventually walked off on its own.

Take a look at a video of the rescue below: