Deer in Sinkhole Rescued (Video)

Sinkholes in northeast Iowa are a fact of life. But…a deer in a sinkhole? Not so much.
Now, though, a 10-point buck has a new lease on life, thanks to three high school friends, who rigged up a late night rescue and pulled him from the Winneshiek County sinkhole. The rescue is captured on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzVJX-vnOfw&feature=share
The half-hour saga unfolded on the Gary Smorstad farm, east of Decorah. While haying October 3, the renter’s tractor tire slipped into a recently opened sinkhole. Smorstad and the neighbor towed it free; looked down and saw a deer looking at them.
Home that night from college, and after the high school football game, Smorstad’s son Eric, Gavin Nimrod and Bryton Meyer picked it up from there.
Buying a rope and clip, they drove through the dark field until the headlights picked out the sinkhole.
“It was hard to see; only three or four feet wide and maybe ten feet deep,” recalls Nimrod. “We made a loop, caught an antler and kept his head up. We decided to tie another rope; Eric and Bryton held my legs and I went down and re-tied it.”
From there, they just pulled until the buck’s antlers, head, and finally front legs were above ground.
“He stopped fighting and looked around, like he was grateful,” said Nimrod. “Then he got his legs under him and took off. The rope caught on the side and busted the clip off and he was gone over the hill. We were hooting and hollering. Up until then, winning the (2012) state football championship was the best thing that ever happened to us. Now, this is.”
As the rescue began, the friends propped up Meyer’s phone on the pickup to capture it all. Good thing, too. It was hard for people around town to believe.
“Before the video was out, people were looking at us, like were nuts!” laughed Nimrod. “We told them, you can’t make up a story like that.”
The video is their proof.
Do they see any irony; three hunters saving a deer from a slow, certain death?
“I am an outdoorsman…I love hunting the animals and love to share the experience with others,” posted Meyer on YouTube. “(But) to share that experience…is what we were going for... not to simply save an animal's life, although I do show tremendous respect for the animals that I hunt.”
Nimrod, too, noted that saving the Sinkhole Buck’s life had no conflict with hunting and ethic of fair chase.