A roe deer that fell through the ice in the Yakutia region of Russia caught a lucky break recently when an Olympic boxer came to its rescue and hauled the stricken animal to safety.

Anatoly Filippov, who competed at the 1992 Olympic Games in the men's flyweight, was fishing in the Amginsky district on October 26 when he spotted the animal freezing to death, half-submerged in the water.

Filippov pulled the female roe deer from the water and he and two other men carried it inside a home.

Filippov then massaged the animal for several minutes to heat up its freezing limbs before releasing the creature back into the wild.

In Yakutia, a roe deer that fell through the ice almost died in the cold water. To the aid of the exhausted animal came Anatoly Filippov, a participant of the 1992 Olympic Games, master of sports of the USSR in boxing, who was fishing nearby.

The events described took place in the Amginsky ulus. Among the three men, the eminent athlete turned out to be the lightest, so it was he who, with a lasso in his hands, walked along the still thin ice to the cloven-hoofed one. He managed to pull the roe deer out of the water, after which Filippov, along with his son-in-law and a friend, carried her to the premises of the station for young naturalists. Here the prize-winner personally gave the screaming animal a massage to restore its mobility.

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