Whitewater Kayaker Saves Drowning Deer’s Life As It Plummeted Down A Raging River

whitewater rapids

Unsplash / Dustin Belt


I have witnessed a lot of person-to-person whitewater kayaking rescues but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an instance of a kayaker rescuing a large animal from a raging river like this. The group spotted this deer drowning as it was being sucked down the raging Candigliano River in central Italy and the one paddler whipped into action to save the deer’s life.

The description of the video points out that the kayaker almost appears to care more about the safety and well being of the young deer than his fellow kayaker who ended up taking a swim but we don’t really see that in the video.

The thing that’s blowing my mind the most about this video is how the deer at some point decides that it needs to straight-up trust the humans or it might die. It’s like it gives up on the fear of this other species in strange plastic boats rushing at it because the option of continuing to get sucked down the river is worse.

Check it out:

I’ve never actually been kayaking outside of the United States. I’ve paddled up and down the East Coast and throughout a lot of the other regions of America and seeing a clip like this reminds me that I still have so much of the world left to experience and how f’n bored I am stuck at home right now and over the past few months.

I could really go for an overnight paddling trip soon.
 

(h/t The Inertia for sharing this video)