BY CLAIRE GALOFARO
BRISTOL HERALD COURIER
BRISTOL, Va. – A spotted, 5-week-old deer got off to a rough start Friday: While strolling a lonely stretch of Stagecoach Road with his mother about 8:30 a.m., a car plowed him over. The driver who hit him just kept going.
But a good Samaritan saw the accident, called it in and waited by the young fawn’s side until the cavalry came.
Lucky for the fawn, the cavalry happened to be Bristol Virginia Animal Control Officer Lisa Holly.
“He was laying out in the middle of the road, near death,” Holly said. “I thought we would have to put him down on scene. Normally, we probably would have shot him.”
But as Holly wrapped him in a blanket to move him to the shoulder, he started coming back to life.
“I was close to crying,” she said. “He was such an awkward, bendy little thing with long, spindly legs. It broke my heart. But, then he got more alert, started moving around.”
The fawn, a spitting image of Bambi, weighed around 10 pounds, she guessed, and was just a couple feet long. His only obvious injuries were little cuts on his face and legs. It is unknown if his mother was injured; she ran from the scene, although Holly suspected that she was watching from the trees.
Determined to save the fawn, who couldn’t walk, Holly packed him in the truck and took him to the Jones Animal Hospital for treatment.
Then the question became where he would go for long-term rehabilitation.
The hospital called Alanna Dingus, a Nickelsville, Va.-based wildlife rehabilitation specialist who agreed to take him in and nurse him back to health.
Dingus and Holly plotted a fawn-exchange for 6:20 p.m.
Holly, off-duty since 4 p.m., drove her personal red sports car to the meeting, with the deer nestled in a crate in the back. The women parked next to each other, petting the deer and smiling for photos. Then Dingus put him in her minivan and drove him to his new home.
Dingus said she would start by keeping him in a small pen and feeding him by bottle. With time, he’ll be able to wander her woods on his own, coming back only for meals. Eventually, she’ll set him free.
“I’ll try to get him completely weaned by Aug. 1,” she said. “Then he can assimilate, get wild again before hunting season. By then, he’ll be big enough to eat on his own, run fast enough to protect himself and go out and get good and fat before winter.”
Dingus works at a veterinary hospital and saves wild animals for free in her off time.
“It’s just fun, a hobby,” Dingus said. “I actually pay $10 a year to keep my license.”
The fawn is now in good company. Dingus is caring for two raccoons, a wild turkey, a couple other fawns, squirrels and rabbits.
“He’s got some head trauma,” she said, “but since this just happened, he probably has a good chance of being able to be back into the wild. We just hope he gets better.”
cgalofaro@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2531
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