Flagler County, Fla. (WFLA) — Florida lifeguards are used to saving lives, but they had to give a rare rescue Sunday.
According to NBC affiliate WESH, beach fans spotted a deer struggling to float on Flagler Beach around 1:30pm. The deer was found approximately 300 yards from the coast near the pier.
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“There was a deer out there. I was thinking, ‘Maybe it’s a Pelican,'” said Chase Hunter, one of the lifeguards who helped with the rescue.
Witnesses said the deer was in the water for about an hour and a half before the deer jumped into action to bring it to the shore.
“He was really there. I saw it and thought, ‘He’s never coming back,'” said Leo Peters, another lifeguard involved in the rescue.
Peters and Hunter said this was the first time they had to deal with this situation.
“I’ve never heard of the deer rescue, I’ve never even heard of the deer in the sea,” Peters told Wesi.
The lifeguards surrounded the deer across the rescue committee and returned them to the land.
Peters told the news station it appears that the deer is sometimes swimming during rescue.
“It kept swimming from me a few times when I was on the board,” he said.
Wesh spoke to James Kroll, a biologist and wildlife expert. He said the deer could have entered the water to escape the threat, like the noise from the weekend of July 4th.
“It might have been in the water to get away from something,” Kroll said. “And that got me into the present.”
Peters told Wesh that he was still amazed at the rescue.
“There’s no way we just did that,” he said.
