Police use drone to rescue 3 deer trapped in icy lake

GREEN LAKE COUNTY, Wis. -- Drones helped a Wisconsin Sheriff's Office rescue three deer trapped in an icy lake.

It happened over the weekend at Big Green Lake.

"We've done a lot of human rescues, looking for people, lost people, search and rescue stuff, accident scene crashes. Never done one doing a herd deer drive with a drone," said Det. Sgt. Josh Ward, with the Green Lake Co. Sheriff's Office.

The drone video shows the doe and her two fawns treading in nearly 40 feet of water about 200 yards from shore.

The deer can be seen trying to get back on any solid ice.

Sheriff Ward said because deer are afraid of people, it prompted a different kind of rescue.

"If we came from the shoreline with a boat, they're just going to try and get away. You're actually doing more harm than good, because you're pushing them further and further away from shore. We couldn't come in from the water side because that's obviously all frozen over," he said.

They used the drone to corral the deer and move them closer to shore, where they were eventually able to grab them with a rope and pull them to land.

CNN, WBAY contributed to this report.