ELSBERRY, Mo. – A fawn fighting rising floodwater in Elsberry, Missouri, called out for help. Fortunately, avid outdoorsman Dustin Dickey was nearby in his boat.
“Had we been about another hour, she’d been dead,” he told KTVI.
Dickey barely saw the fawn marooned in water that was at least four feet deep.
“As we got closer to her she just started bleating and bleating and finally I could just
see a head sticking right above the corn stalks,” he said.
The fawn appeared to be a week-old, Dickey said, and weighed about five pounds.
Dickey plucked her out of the cold floodwater.
“She had a whole bunch of debris on her face. Gnats were all over her. I was brushing all that off and we just did everything we could,” he said.
Dickey said the conservation department wouldn’t take her but they found a rescue that would. But this isn’t the only animal he’s saved from the floods.
“Some guy had come down and said he left his dog in his house and needed to be rescued,” he said.
Dickey said the dog had been left at the house for four days.
“He was just happy to see us. I can tell you that. He was just very happy to see us,” he said.
Dickey said the wildlife in this rural area is trying to find any dry spots it can. Raccoons are climbing up power poles and snakes are slithering up trees. Others are having to make do with what dry land is left in Elsberry.
“We saw one deer running down the levee and we saw a coyote chasing it. The wildlife out here is just trying to do whatever it can to not starve to death and die. It’s just trying to stay alive,” he said.
Dickey said when he last checked, the fawn seemed to be in good health.
