Injured deer runs into emergency room, gets strapped to gurney

ROCHESTER, N.Y., Oct. 28 (UPI) -- A deer injured by a car dragged itself into a New York state emergency room and was placed on a stretcher by authorities.

Jim DeFerio, who was brought to Rochester's Strong Memorial Hospital emergency room with a heart attack Monday, said he was baffled by the prospective patient that came in the door behind him.

"I turned around and there was a deer I would say about 3 feet high, a small deer, and he ran past me," DeFerio told WHAM-TV. "It ran right by me slipping as it went and everybody kind of moved aside. What are you going to do? You see a deer coming down fast, so everybody moves."

University of Rochester Medical Center spokesman Chris DiFrancesco said the deer did not make it to any patient care areas.

"It wandered toward the hospital and through the automatic doors of the emergency department,"  DiFrancesco told the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle.

A pair of Monroe County sheriff's deputies who were at the hospital at the time of the incident assisted University of Rochester Public Safety officers in escorting the deer out of the facility.

"They strapped it to a gurney and wheeled it across the parking lot," DiFrancesco said.

Deputies contacted animal control officers, who determined the deer's injuries were too severe to treat. The animal was euthanized.

"It's an extremely odd situation," Mark Fischer, chief of Public Safety at the university, told Time Warner Cable News. "I had to listen a little hard to my radio today when I heard a call about a deer in the emergency department, but you know, it's the time of year when they're running a lot and this one was pretty obviously struck by a car. It was in pretty bad shape, but still mobile enough to get inside the emergency department."