Whatever Jim Bob and Jacey Ellsworth expected to encounter down by the river a few weeks ago in South Dakota, it wasn’t a deer with its antlers locked into the antlers of another deer’s severed head. Feeling sorry for the entangled buck, the Ellsworths managed to free the living deer from the dead deer’s remains, but it wasn’t easy. The video of their efforts went viral.
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“Unreal experience today!” wrote Jim Bob Ellsworth in an Instagram post sharing the video. “We were caking cows down by the river and our dog Hank spooked up this buck that was laying down below the river bank. He had horns locked with another buck but there wasn’t much left of that one. He then spooked and ran across the ice falling in the river. He struggled for a minute or two and I grabbed him before he went under. We were able to get horns unlocked and him back on his way. I’m still in awe . . . nature is wild and unforgiving.”
Ellsworth said in a response to a comment that he used the saw blade on his Leatherman multi-tool to cut the antlers and free the living buck. After the video went viral, several other people picked it up and shared it as well, praising Ellsworth on a job well done. Now we’re all wondering what happened in the first place.
Watch Ellsworth free the deer entangled with another deer’s severed head here: