I teach outdoors for school groups in a nature area and a part of that process is a discovery hike. Its me, about 12 kids, and a parent chaperone and as we are walking through the woods we see a deer. All these kids, who were in 4th grade, were so excited! We very quietly watched it grazing around in this woods, not giving us any mind at all, when it sort of gets its antlers tangled in some vine and ends up pulling a dead tree down on top of it.

The deer is now flailing under a whole ass tree that collapsed right on to it, and it clearly is suffering. It is making the worst kinds of noises and I have the parent keep the kids back as I approach this crazed stag. It clearly suffered head trauma and was bleeding. The worst part is that it was right on the path back and, due to the terrain, there was really no way to get around this deer without being close to it. After trying and failing to get the deer loose, I had the children all vlimb over the tree and we went back. To top it off they all immediately got on the bus to go home, so it was the last memory these kids had of the place.

I ended up going back and putting the deer down. Absolutely traumatizing.