In Canada during the winter it is not uncommon for deer that attempt to walk over the ice on a lake or pond to become marooned. Once stranded the deer can become too weak after struggling on the slick surface. When this happens, many times natural resources officer must be called in to assist the animal. The techniques vary from lassos to inflatable rafts and sometimes helicopters are used.

That was the case in Nova Scotia recently with a stranded doe and her baby on Antigonish Harbour when the ice was too thin for a DNR team to risk walking across. So instead, the helicopter pilot devised another ingenious way to help the deer. He ended up using the aircraft's rotors to literally blow the deer across the ice to safety.

As can be seen in the video below, the helicopter swoops in close to the deer and hovers several feet above the ice. The Pilot, Dave Farrell said he used the aircraft's downwash, which is the air forced down by the helicopter's rotors, to gain enough momentum to slide the deer across the ice.

Farrell, said he has used this technique to rescue stranded deer in the past, and that the deer are generally cooperative during the process: "Once they realize that they're moving, they kind of just flatten out and they don't struggle too much. I think it's a lot less stressful for the animal, just to relax and let the downward motion push them across the ice."

After Farrell blew the doe toward the shore, there were two men waiting on the ground to pull her to safety. Luckily the fawn had been able to make it off the ice on its own and was reunited with his mother.

Ian Waugh, who had reported the helpless doe to the DNR, was the one who filmed the amazing helicopter rescue from his window and posted the clip to YouTube on Feb. 27. "I thought they were going to do something entirely different," Waugh said. "As the video shows, they actually did something pretty elegant ... and it worked."