I saved Bambi once. One of the cooler things I’ve done in my life and one of the most memorable.
I was driving down the long, winding, wooded road to my job at the tennis club. Coming around a bend I looked up to the top of a hill and noticed a deer standing up by a wrought iron fence that surrounded the yard of one of the neighbourhood’s wealthy occupants. Nothing unusual there until I noticed the mini deer standing next to it. The mini deer was just a baby. Half the height and probably a third of the weight of its mother. The baby deer’s haunches were wedged between two bars of the fence.
I watched as a garbage truck (with two burly guys in it) drove by. I watched again as a large pickup truck drove by. I knew they had to have seen the deer but neither vehicle stopped. Hmmph I thought, so much for men.
My anxiety level was rising. I am always completely overcome by desperate situations that involve animals. I stopped my car, not even thinking what I would do, and looked up at the house. I could see an older couple framed in the picture window with a phone in the hand of the gentleman. They were looking at the deer. I knew what that meant. ANIMAL CONTROL. I had had many encounters with animal control. In my experience they would come out and take the animal away and that would be that. For some reason they are reticent to just let animals go. Anyways, I couldn’t let that happen.
I approached the deer and realized that deer are much bigger than one would think. Especially when you are looking up at them. Mama deer didn’t budge from her spot next to baby. Baby’s haunches were scraped and bloody from trying desperately to free itself. It struggled as I approached. My brother later told me I was lucky that mama deer didn’t rip me a new one but to this day I think she sensed I was there to help.
I looked at the bars and decided the only thing to do would be to widen them so the baby could slip through. My heart was pumping like mad which probably accounts for the adrenaline. I placed my hands on the bars, heard a noise and stopped. It was the garbage truck coming back. I suddenly flashed to the horrible sight of me freeing the deer and watching as they ran headlong into the path of the garbage truck. So I waited. Moments later I bent the bars apart (still QUITE amazed about that – seemed like nothing at the time, but today I try it on similar bars and they don’t budge), and sure enough the deer shot down the hill and across the road. They didn’t even look both ways.
I ran back to my car before the owners of the fence could voice their opinions. But thinking about it afterwards I realized that I could feel only good vibrations emanating from the house – concern. They didn’t care about the fence (they were rich anyways) and I think I felt their relief as the deer was freed from its prison. Anyways, everyone around there knew I was the manager of the tennis club so I’m sure I would have heard about it if the people had been upset and I never did.
I like to think about that deer, alive and well, living in California – with maybe a few scars from its brush with a humanity.
