Father-Daughter Team Saves Woman From Deer

Sue Panter was screaming to God to not let her die when Michael Vaughan and his 17-year-old daughter Alexis rushed in and saved her life.

Michael and Alexis were just driving home on Friday when they saw something they will never forget.

“We were driving down this road and Sue was actually down (there). When we caught up to her she was actually down in the corn field there in the first row of corn,” Michael said.

Alexis jumped from the car and ran to Panter, who had gone on a morning jog earlier that day. She was headed home when a deer jumped out of the cornfield and started walking beside her — for an eerie amount of time.

“And it walked, parallel with me, up the road. But it kind of had its head down. So I knew I was going down. It was just a matter of a car came before it took me down or not,” Panter said.

But that didn’t happen. The deer charged at Panter and threw her off the road. She tried to play dead and could feel the antlers piercing her legs.

“It stuck its antler through my neck and kind of hit my shoulder. But the one in my neck I could feel go through my neck. And kind of then I just decided, if I don’t fight back I’m dead,” she said.

Scrambling to keep herself out of the corn field so that someone would see her, Panter fought for her life. She has no memory of how long it was, until Michael and Alexis showed up. Alexis jumped out and started punching the deer, her dad stopped the car and came to help her. They were able to get Panter out of the way, but the deer turned on Michael.

“It actually jabbed me three times in my leg,” Michael said, showing off the holes in his jeans.

Alexis grabbed a hammer from the car and the two fought until the deer ran off into the cornfield.

“You’re just thinking, ‘Save this lady, save this lady,’ and it was instinct,” Michael said.

“You get out of the car and the first thing you see is that much fear in some body’s eyes. You don’t have time to think. That’s one thing that stuck in my head all weekend was that look in her eyes and her saying, ‘help,'” Alexis said.

“I’m just so thankful for that man and that girl. I just can’t believe that she would (do that). If I came up on something like that I don’t know if I would just start hitting at a deer and kicking it. That’s pretty brave,” Panter said.

Panter was happy to report that she is recovering from some vicious wounds very quickly.

Fish and Game is saying people should not try to kill the deer themselves. Officers are actively hunting it and want to have the deer analyzed to see if it has any diseases that would cause it to attack.