Narrows Marina saves drowning fawn

By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor

At about 5 p.m. on Friday, July 8, the Newell and Pierce families were enjoying a pontoon boat ride on Big Glen Lake when they saw a tiny fawn floating in the deep water. Only, the baby deer’s head cleared the waterline, and it was struggling to stay afloat. The Newells called On the Narrows Marina, from whom they had rented the pontoon, and encountered what they perceived to be disbelief on the other end of the line. The phone call ended abruptly.

Mary Jane Newell recounts that, “moments later, jet skis with two young men came rushing across the water toward us and we were sure the fawn was going to be killed by the unassuming jet skis.”

Newell was wrong. To the rescue came Narrows Marina employees Matt Galla and Michael McCahill (whose family owns the business). They circled the scared animal in their jet skis, and then Galla, 17, pulled the fawn out of the water, but not before the deer accidentally kicked him in the face, bloodying his lip.

“It was a little difficult,” says Galla. “The fawn was very scared. It was wailing and distressed. A noisy little bugger.”

Galla estimates that the fawn weighed about 40 pounds and probably would have drowned had he not pulled it out of the middle of Big Glen Lake. Galla held the deer close to his chest as they zoomed back toward the marina. Once ashore, he put the animal in the backseat of his pickup truck and covered it with a towel. The fawn soon calmed down and fell asleep.

Later that day, after super-gluing his wounded lip, Galla drove the lucky animal to his home about five miles outside of Cedar, where his family runs a farm with pigs and other animals. They often see deer grazing there too.

“We have some does there with fawns. I thought they might adopt this one.”

Sure enough, the new fawn began interacting with other deer on the Galla property, and Matt hasn’t seen it since.

Does he feel like a hero?

“No, this is day-to-day stuff at the Narrows Marina. People drop their dogs in the water all the time and we have to go fetch them.”