Couple Saves A Moose From Drowning In Frozen Waters

What would you do if you lived in one of the coldest countries in the world and you saw an animal struggling to stay alive in the frozen lake behind your house? The natives sure didn't think twice to go out and rescue the hapless creature!

On February 1, 2017, a couple in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden made what can only be described as the most heroic post-lunch activity one can muster.

"Around 1PM, as my girlfriend and I had just finished our lunch, we looked out the window and saw that the ice looked strange a few hundred meters from the shore. About seven meters from a small island across the bay, it looked like someone had thrown a huge rock onto the ice, but through the binoculars we could see that "the rock" really was a moose struggling to get out of the water. It was evident that it was having problems. We didn't hesitate much but got our clothes and ice-skates on and set out, bringing along an axe and an ice pick.

"It only took us a few minutes to get there and we didn't have much time to prepare mentally for the situation, but when we arrived we could see that the moose needed help getting out of the hole in the ice. When we came close, the moose first tried to get away from us, but soon settled down an lay resting with her head on the ice while her body shivered in the cold water. My girlfriend, Sigrid Sjösteen, immediately started hacking away at the ice to try to get the animal ashore. At first we thought that it would suffice to perforate the ice, so that the moose could break it herself, but at that point it was too exhausted to even attempt it.

"In the end we had to break the ice entirely to make a path all the way to shallower water, where she could reach the bottom and heave herself out of the water. We took turns chopping, and as the ice was quite thin we also had to make sure to keep ourselves out of the water, since we didn't want to end up taking a cold bath with a 300 kilo moose. All in all we were there a bit over 30 minutes before she got out. During those 30 minutes we weren't at all sure whether she would make it or not, as she lay passive for long periods of time and sometimes didn't even react when we tried to scare her towards the path. Needless to say, it was a great relief when she was finally back on dry land and we knew that she was going to make it."