{"id":211964,"date":"2026-06-05T22:29:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T22:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/211964\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T22:29:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T22:29:07","slug":"first-responders-rescue-baby-fawn-in-dickson-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/211964\/","title":{"rendered":"First responders rescue baby fawn in Dickson City"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It was an unusual call for first responders in Lackawanna County, as they had to rescue a baby fawn stuck for days under a rock.<\/p>\n<p>DICKSON CITY, Pa. \u2014 &#8220;It&#8217;s not a call we get every day, as we say it&#8217;s never a dull day in Dickson,&#8221; said Chief William Bilinski, Dickson City Police Department.<\/p>\n<p>An unusual call quickly became an all-hands-on-deck rescue mission in Dickson City on Thursday as a fawn became stuck in a groundhog hole.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Like anything else, it&#8217;s a life, whether it&#8217;s a human or an animal. It&#8217;s a very young fawn that was in a predicament. These people had seen the mother for about a day and a half or two days, and they couldn&#8217;t figure out why, until they started hearing the cries from the fawn under the rock,&#8221; said Chief Bilinski.<\/p>\n<p>                                            &#13;<br \/>\n                                                <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wnep.com\/assets\/shared-images\/icons\/arrow-circle-down.svg\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\"\/>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>                                            &#13;<br \/>\n                                                This story continues below.&#13;<\/p>\n<p>The baby deer was pinned under a large rock, one that was too big and too heavy to move.<\/p>\n<p>Officials believe the fawn was without food or water for nearly two days.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We don&#8217;t know how it got in there. We don&#8217;t know if the mom kind of shooed it under, because they tend to do that,&#8221; said Bilinski.<\/p>\n<p>It took precision, patience, and even the jaws of life to help free the baby.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We had a lot of young people who are on our crew. So it was a good experience for them, as far taking their time and figuring out how to do things. The old guy gives them a little bit of guidance and helping hands. There was a lot of work involved, and they did a really great job,&#8221; said Joe Chowanec, DPW foreman.<\/p>\n<p>Officials say that while first responders are used to handling any emergency, calls like this don&#8217;t come every day.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This one&#8217;s a strange one. It&#8217;s not usually, maybe stuck in a fence or something like that. But very rare, maybe once every 10 years,&#8221; said Chowanec.<\/p>\n<p>Officials say it also serves as a good reminder of when humans should and shouldn&#8217;t step in when it comes to wildlife and baby season.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t approach them, just let them be. It&#8217;s the best thing you can do is wherever they&#8217;re at, let them go. Sooner or later, mom will come back she doesn&#8217;t forget them,&#8221; said Chowanec.<\/p>\n<p>The fawn is currently in the care of the Pennsylvania Game Commission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was an unusual call for first responders in Lackawanna County, as they had to rescue a baby&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-211964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}