Viewer captures photos of deer swimming in Lake Erie far from Cleveland shore

CLEVELAND - A NewsChannel5 viewer captured photos of a deer swimming about 1,000 yards off the Lake Erie shoreline Thursday.

Ralph Stock told NewsChannel5 he was perch fishing out of Cleveland near the lighthouse, when the deer started swimming toward his boat.

Here's Stock's account of what happened:

"We immediately pulled north of him to try to convince him to swim back to shore and then a pontoon boat came and tried to help us as well. We called the Coast Guard and a ODNR boat came to help him. We left when he got on the inside breakwall, but we saw him climb back down lakeside as we were leaving."

Stock said he saw the deer eventually make it to shore.

A birdwatcher who was at Wendy Park saw come back in toward land. He said once the deer was within 15 feet of the shore and able to stand in the water, it just stood there for about a half hour, nearly falling asleep from exhaustion.

Meteorologist Trent Magill said the temperature of the lake Thursday was a chilly 59 degrees.

Have you ever seen anything quite like this? Chime in via the comment box below.

When you capture photos of interesting things happening around town, email them to 5pix@newsnet5.com