Oh, deer: Unexpected visitor stirs up excitement at nursing home

Apparently where Charles Johnson goes, excitement follows.

Most recently, the 75-year-old’s move to the Kenyon Sunset Home brought with it something staff at the assisted living facility never imagined they would see. Friday afternoon, Johnson was minding his own business watching television when a four-legged creature ran into his bedroom.

“My brother’s only been there a couple weeks — go figure,” Red Wing resident Dick Johnson said about something so strange happening so soon after the move.

No, the creature wasn’t a neighbor’s pet, a field mouse or a rabbit from outside. Rather, it was something much larger.

Johnson found himself staring at a buck.

“I thought ‘Oh my gosh, there’s a deer here,’” the Kenyon Sunset Home resident said.

The small buck jumped through a window to get into the facility, ran through the hallways and eventually tried to hurdle itself out another window just above Johnson’s bed.

“We do a lot of emergency planning around here, but we never did a drill for this scenario,” Kenyon Sunset Home Administrator Dave Vandergon said.

Still, the situation was under control in a matter of minutes. Staff called the Kenyon Police Department, which in turn called a local veterinarian who tranquilized the animal before bagging it up and removing it from the facility.

“You could say the Kenyon Sunset Home bags a deer,” Vandergon joked to the R-E.

No humans were injured as a result of the event. The buck, however, suffered a few cuts and scrapes.

“He went through the glass window and took a patch of hide off,” Vandergon said. “It did make kind of a mess … but we got it all cleaned up fairly quickly.”

Tags: goodhue county, news, accident, outdoors, kenyon, social