PHOTOS: Firefighters save a deer in the garden of a Hungarian family house

The fire and police department saved a deer

Photo: Facebook/BM Országos Katasztrófavédelmi Főigazgatóság

Year after year, citizens in Hungary alert the fire department to animals in distress. In 2021, for example, firefighters helped animals in distress more than twenty times in Nógrád county only. In the whole country, they have helped deers, dogs, cats and even a baby stork that had fallen out of its nest. A largely positive outcome was achieved in the rescue operations of firefighters, which was no different from the first case this year.

Antlers in distress

This year, the first such case took place in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county, where the police and disaster management rescued a deer trapped in a water shaft in Ózd. The large animal fell into a narrow water shaft in the yard of a family house on 16 January 2023.

Photo: Facebook/BM Országos Katasztrófavédelmi Főigazgatóság – ózdi hivatásos tűzoltó-parancsnokság

The police have suggested the use of a veterinary-approved hypodermic. After a veterinarian tranquilised the deer, units used a mechanised wheeled ladder to extract the antlered victim from the shaft. The animal was then extracted unharmed from the water shaft by the emergency services, safely transported to a nearby forest and released under supervision, wrote a local news portal Sajómente.hu.

Photo: Facebook/BM Országos Katasztrófavédelmi Főigazgatóság – ózdi hivatásos tűzoltó-parancsnokság

Previous successful rescues of firefighters

Fortunately, authorities act quickly. It happened also in the other part of the country in 2020, where a cat was rescued from the engine compartment of a car. A driver approached them at the barracks, saying that a cat had crawled into the engine compartment and it was stucked. After about fifty minutes of work, they freed the trapped cat from the engine compartment, wrote Blikk.hu.

Photo: Facebook/BM Országos Katasztrófavédelmi Főigazgatóság

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There are many cats among the animals in distress, but there are also dogs waiting to be rescued. In 2021, according to the National Directorate General for Disaster Management, the firefighters rescued a dog that had fallen through the ice in Székesfehérvár. The animal was being walked on the nature trail when it ran into the frozen Sóstó. The ice broke under the dog and its owner.

The fifteen-year-old girl managed to get out of the water, but the animal could not hold on to the ice. The firefighters from Székesfehérvár laid a plug ladder on the ice and approached it with rope safety. The dog and its owner were unharmed.

Photo: BM Országos Katasztrófavédelmi Főigazgatóság – Hujber László

In 2021, a young stork fell out of its nest in the village of Szurdokpüspöki, Nógrád county. The animal could not fly yet, so it was unable to return to the nest by itself. Firefighters from Pásztó and Salgótarján rushed to the aid of the distressed bird. With the help of the ladder truck from Salgótarján, the teams successfully returned the animal to its nest, wrote the Facebook site of the National Directorate General for Disaster Management.

Photo: Facebook/BM Országos Katasztrófavédelmi Főigazgatóság – Pásztó HTP

Tireless work by firefighters

As we wrote earlier, firefighters are also on the job all year round, and are particularly often called out during the festive season. Last year on the first day of Christmas, 185 emergency calls were received by the disaster management. On the same day, 133 fire brigades needed to intervene.