Deer wanders into Port Colborne repair shop
Plan to herd the fawn out the door works
Fawns are not on the list of things that Port Colborne’s Erie Muffler and Brake Shop repair.
But Thursday morning, with the help of a couple of customers and mechanic Brian Busch, shop owners Dante Ciccone and Frank Koros assisted a baby deer that wandered into their business.
“We got here around 8:05 a.m. and opened the bay doors. Frank proceeded to bring the first car into the shop when he saw a fawn across Lincoln Avenue run into a small bush beside a house,” said Ciccone.
The shop sits on the southeast corner of Killaly Street East and Lincoln Avenue. Across the street is a wide-open farmer’s field with a woodlot in the distance.
Ciccone said he went to bring a second car into the shop when Koros stopped him at the gates.
“I saw the bay doors were closed … I walked inside and there was a deer in the shop.”
While Ciccone went to call Welland and District Humane Society, Koros was inside the shop trying to keep the fawn calm.
The men hatched a plan to try and herd the deer into a lunchroom at the shop and wait for the humane society.
“They (the humane society) do a great job, but we didn’t know how long they were going to be and the deer started to freak out,” said Ciccone.
When the two men, along with Busch and the two customers, tried to herd the deer to the lunchroom, it saw the front door of the shop and headed for it.
Quickly changing their plan, the group decided to block off Killaly Street, open the front door and hope the deer would leave the shop and cross the road into the field.
Ciccone shared that plan with the humane society, which had called him back, and he said they were good with it.
One of the customers helped block the road, while the other worked with Koros and Busch.
“It worked perfectly … the deer ran across the field and back to its family, I hope. It was a great experience,” said Ciccone.