VIDEO: Conn. Deer Rescue Transfixes Hundreds Of Thousands Of People

Hundreds of thousands of people tuned in to an hours-long rescue operation of a deer hopelessly stuck on ice in Simsbury, Conn.

The scared deer splayed on the frozen river was streamed live by several television channels on Monday, in some cases for more than three hours, as rescue workers tried to get it to safety.

You can watch the full, agonizing rescue operation in this video — it begins about 2 1/2 hours in.

It shows a rescue worker sliding the terrified animal to the side of the river. Then it took a team's repeated attempts to lift the struggling deer up the bank.

Local animal control officer Mark Rudewicz told NBC Connecticut that coyotes chased the deer onto the thin ice.

The story has a happy ending, the station reports — the deer scampered back off into the woods.

The whole saga brings to mind this beloved scene from the Disney classic Bambi:

And incidentally, this deer isn't the only animal getting into trouble on thin ice in the past week — here's the story of a cow rescue in Oregon:

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