Deer with head stuck in plastic jug rescued in Pennsylvania

March 18 (UPI) -- A deer spotted wandering for several weeks in Pennsylvania with a large plastic jug stuck over its head has been freed by neighbors.

Ohio Township resident Bill Sawyer's game camera first recorded the deer wandering with the plastic jug on its head Feb. 22.

"I caught it on the game cam. I thought it was an orb. I couldn't figure out what it was," Sawyer told WPXI-TV.

Neighbors made numerous attempts to locate the deer and it was spotted several more times before local couple Lisa and Matt Mertz were able to catch it.

"Lisa ran it down and bear hugged the jug and Matt tackled it and it took both Matt and Lisa to rip the jug off its head," Sawyer wrote on Facebook.

Sawyer said rescuing the deer, dubbed Jughead by neighbors, was a rallying point for the community.

"We all worked together," Sawyer said. "Twenty people around here worked together to give it a chance."

Lisa and Matt Mertz said they were happy to see Jughead's story come to a happy ending.

"We're huge animal lovers and you could just tell, the look on its face, that it was starting to wear down and get a lot weaker. I'm not sure if it would've survived another day, so it was all in god's hands to handle it and we were able to figure it out," Lisa Mertz said.