A Wounded Deer Survives in the Admirals

On the rainiest day in December, Officer Joe Couch, Special Deputy, Marion County Sheriff’s Department, Neighborhood Patrol, received a call from a conscientious Bridgewater resident expressing concern that she’d hit a deer as she was driving on 86th Street west of Carroll Road. The driver thought the deer was injured, but it had managed to run off into the wooded residential area. Officer Couch immediately searched, with no success in locating the wounded animal.
The next day, while making a routine neighborhood patrol in Admirals Bay, Officer Couch spotted a White Tail Deer that appeared to be impaired. As he approached to survey the extent of its wounds, the animal, a doe, darted off, revealing to Officer Couch’s amazement a nearly severed hind leg. The doe had not moved far before settling back down in a thicketed ravine at the rear of a home on Richlane Drive in Admirals Bay near the Carroll Road entrance.
Officer Couch called the DNR (Department of Natural Resources) to discuss the best rescue solution and was given the phone number of a wild and exotic animal solutions service, which he called. They arranged to meet at the home where the wounded deer was presumably langoring. But the meeting and rescue would not be possible for two days — a sad but insurmountable circumstance. During those two days Officer Couch checked frequently on the ailing doe, finding she had not moved from the spot where she had come to rest, though clearly her head was upright and her senses alert.
Upon receiving the assignment to cover this story for atGeist.com, this reporter was eager to witness the skillful rescue of an ailing undomesticated animal, though saddened by its suffering. The event was to take place Saturday, December 16, at around 9:30 a.m. On that morning, my husband Richard accompanied me as a photographer, and we met Officer Couch, who explained the details not known to us prior to the meeting.
Enter Dr. Brice Finney, DVM, whose persona and past emphatically highlight the story that was about to unfold. Dr. Finney’s credentials and life experiences are remarkable, to say the least. He is known to the DNR through his extensive background and his current practice, Icevet II P.C., providing wild and exotic animal solutions. He is also the Program Director for the International Business College, Department of Veterinary Technology Institute, in Fort Wayne. Dr. Finney, in 25 years of military service, served as a Green Beret on a Special Forces A team and was deployed in recent special operations; was Co-Founder and Program Director for the US Army Joint Special Operations Medical Training Center; traveled much of the world, working first-hand with foreign animal and zoonotic diseases in Haiti and Sub-Sahara Africa; participated in operation Arctic Care with the Army Medical Department in remote villages of Alaska; and worked as a trail vet for the Iditarod and Yukon Quest 1000+ mile sled dog races — to name a few of his admirable achievements. You can learn more at his website: www.icevetII.com
We arrived on the scene and stood on the large deck of the home, trying to spot the doe. Talk about nature’s phenomena of blending in; it reminded me of a sophisticated game of Where’s Waldo?. But Dr. Finney’s keen sense easily discovered the subject, and he helped us make out the gray-brown creature. Back around in the front of the house, where we could speak audibly, Dr. Finney explained his plan to calculate the chemical formula he would use in the darts to tranquilize the deer. Officer Couch, clearly assuming the deer would be taken to a shelter for rehabilitation, was surprised to learn that Dr. Finney knew of no such facility available. Officer Couch spent the next half hour inquiring by phone of any potential shelter in the region. To his disappointment, there is none. Dr. Finney explained his perspective on euthanizing a wild animal not likely able to survive in its habitat with such injuries. Further, that the humane solution to euthanize is most often saving the animal from a cruel and certain death by a predator or by the inability to thrive. First, however, he would tranquilize the animal as planned, assess her injuries, then decide whether she should be patched up and released, or alternatively euthanized before recovering from the tranquilization.
Dr. Finney prepared his dart gun. Officer Couch, Richard and I were stationed strategically to observe and be a deterrent to the doe’s attempt at escape. Dr. Finney stood in her sight path for a time, inching his way close enough to shoot the dart. Sensing danger, the deer rose to her three legs; the broken hind leg dangled only by a strand of hide. She began to move about. When it appeared she might escape, Dr. Finney shot the dart—and missed—the doe running free between the houses to a resting place in another neighborhood. We followed in pursuit, and the scene was repeated twice more.
Dr. Finney decided to switch to a blowgun for the third attempt. The cold seemed to affect the CO2 gun adversely, the gun not having enough force for the distance. The subject had made her way quite ably from Richlane Drive to two different residences on Old Stone Drive, then to the wooded area behind the Admirals Bay Clubhouse, where she disappeared. By that time it was uncertain whether the tranquilization would be achieved. Nearly four hours had passed since we began. Dr. Finney concluded he would need to retrieve the last dart, then he would continue to follow tracks for a while. He suggested the doe might eventually double back to her original resting spot.
Officer Couch indicated he would soon need to tend to other duties. Richard and I, both just recovering from bad head colds, decided to give up the search and head to a warm establishment for hot coffee and food. Leaving our cell phone numbers with Dr. Finney and Officer Couch, we asked to be advised later of the final outcome.
The call came from Officer Couch in about another hour. He reported that Dr. Finney had spotted the deer again, that she had outrun two chasing dogs and disappeared once more. This would be her final act of elusion from the humane efforts of the eminent Dr. Brice Finney.
I have a suspicion we’ve not seen the last of the indomitable three-legged deer roaming about The Admirals. Sightings might be reported. However, I think she’s earned her independence, which she appears determined to maintain.