Town of West Bend, Wi – With the 12th annual Bowl-a-thon for the Washington County Dive Team set for Saturday, March 1, 2025, we’ll turn back the clock to December 2006 when a hobby farm in the town of Addison was used as headquarters to help rescue a hypothermic deer that had been pulled from Big Cedar Lake. The story is below.
Rose Mallek has a hobby farm on Ohio Road in the town of Addison. Over the years she’s had llamas, horses, chickens, and sheep and on Tuesday night she was housing a hypothermic deer that had been pulled out of Big Cedar Lake. “He was really weak and stressed from being wet and cold,” said Mallek whose son John Mallek was one of the Slinger Firefighters who helped rescue the deer.
Local vet Dr. Dale Schneider was brought in by DNR Warden Bill Mitchell to work on the young buck, dubbed Iceberg by the firefighters. “We finally were able to get three IV’s into him,” said Schneider who had trouble finding a vein because the deer was so cold and had very low blood pressure. “We pumped in 4000 c.c.’s, or a gallon of warm fluids with electrolytes.” Schneider said the animal was so cold they couldn’t even ‘feel a warm spot.’ “I’m surprised he survived the two hours in the water, much less the night.”
Rose Mallek was surprised as well but classified the overall experience as ‘pretty neat.’ “I love animals, and I was just really glad to see my son John work to save the deer,” she said. “He took it in personally and worked hard to save the deer.”
The Mallek’s left the shed door ajar Tuesday night, in the event the deer found the strength to get up and leave. “We checked on him a couple of time and it wasn’t until Wednesday afternoon around 5 o’clock when we think he left,” said Mallek who was out getting her mail when she noticed the deer was gone.
Mitchell said Iceberg was an eight-point buck, about 2 years old and 160 pounds.
