A Deer in the Strobe Lights
Photo Courtesy of Kimberley SiscoThe firefighters at Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department Station 12 are starting to get a reputation as deer rescuers.
On Monday, Kimberley Sisco, a volunteer with the Wildlife Rescue League, stopped by the Great Falls, Virginia firehouse looking for help in setting a fawn’s badly broken leg.
The crew from Shift A didn’t hesitate. They got on the fire engine and drove to Sisco’s nearby home to lend a hand. Sisco, a licensed, apprentice wildlife rehabilitator, wasn’t a stranger to the firefighters. Station 12 had called Sisco about 6 weeks earlier to care for another fawn that the firefighters found during a training session on the Potomac River. That deer had fallen off a cliff.
The most recent injured fawn had come to Kimberley Sisco from a Clifton, Virginia, family. They spotted the fawn in their back yard. Sisco believes the deer’s leg had been mangled in a fence.
While the deer has an appointment for surgery at the Life Center of Leesburg for Thursday, Sisco believed, if the open fracture in the leg wasn’t set properly, the fawn would lose its leg and its life.
Unable to find any veterinarians willing or able to reduce the fracture, Sisco turned to the firefighters. On the fire engine was Firefighter/EMT Kim Larson. Larson is a former animal control officer and had been trained in wildlife rehabilitation.
Larson, along with Captain Sammy Grey, Master Technician/Paramedic Carl Saulberg and Firefighter Miguel Obleas, helped put the bone back in place. They then wrapped and splinted the leg.
Kimberley Sisco says the crew treated the animal as if it was one of the two legged patients they normally deal with.
Here is what Ms. Sisco wrote to STATter 911 about the crew at Station 12:
Once here, they treated the fawn with a compassion, a courtesy, a professionalism and the confidence that one could only pray for in our greatest time of need. For either oneself or a loved one. They defined both heroism and set a new standard for community service.
Please extend my respect, my gratitude, and my heartfelt thanks – not just for the time and care they took with a hurt and helpless fawn, but for the peaceful night’s sleep I had knowing that is is those men and women that stay awake in the night to keep us safe.
You can watch our interview with Kimberley Sisco here.
EMS 401A, Captain Ry Kendrick, was involved with the previous fawn rescue by Station 12. He gives us this account:
This fawn fell from a cliff on the Virginia side of the river, just
above Difficult Run. People on the Maryland side witnessed the fall and saw the young deer struggling in the water unable to get out due to the steep rocks. As luck would have it, the crew from Great Falls Fire Station 12 were returning from a day of training in their boats, and the crowd got their attention and pointed out the fawn.
Boat 12 was able to get close enough for Captain Dave Conrad and Technician Gery Morrison to pull the animal from the water right before he went under. After providing first aid and warmth the crew took the deer to the Rangers and contacted a Wildlife Rehabilitator who later picked up the fawn and is caring for it until it is old enough to be released.
Captain Kendrick provided these pictures of the rescue of the fawn on the Potomac River:
