The mother deer who was rescued by officers in Bowling Green, Kentucky while giving birth to twin fawns has died.
On Tuesday, Warren County Sheriff’s Office deputies and animal control officers responded to a resident’s call about a female deer lying in their backyard for two days and discovered the animal was distressed and in labor.
The officers were able to assist the doe in delivering her two fawns and were then taken to a rehabilitation facility.
The doe that was rescued by Kentucky officers while giving birth to twin fawns has died.
Warren County Sheriffs Office/Facebook
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On Wednesday, Wild 4 Life, a nonprofit wildlife rehabilitation center, confirmed they received the mother deer and her newborns and shared an update to Facebook regarding the doe.
“Unfortunately, mama didn’t make [it] despite my efforts to save her,” Lori Dawson, who runs the organization, wrote on Facebook.
She tells PEOPLE that the mother doe was very small for the season, hypothesizing that she was likely too young to have gotten pregnant. Dawson also noted that the animal was lying out in the Kentucky heat for two days trying to give birth.
“She never stood up as long as I had her,” Dawson tells PEOPLE.
She also shared information regarding the status of the two fawns in her Facebook post.
“Her twins are a girl and boy,” the post reads. “I have named them Jack and Jill. They are very small and fawns are very fragile.”
“Fawns are normally born late May or early June,” the post added, emphasizing their fragile state being born so late in the season. “No one has fawn this size so they need each other.”
“I am praying they both make it,” the post concludes.
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In subsequent updates on Facebook, Dawson shared that she was able to secure goat milk to feed the newborns. She tells PEOPLE that “one is thriving.” She says the other is still not eating a lot, but that she “still has hope.”
The Warren County Sheriff’s Office detailed their rescue efforts in a Facebook post on Tuesday.
After the dramatic delivery, the mother deer was checked over and given water via a syringe to keep her hydrated. The fawn siblings were fed bottles of milk.
The trio was later taken to Wild 4 Life. The Warren County Sheriff’s Office shared that they provided the mother doe some medical treatment, and, at the time, she was showing signs of improvement.
In a similar story of first responders coming to the rescue with a more heartwarming ending, in June, firefighters in Owing Mills, Maryland, came to the aid of a female deer whose baby got stuck in a storm drain for hours. According to local news station WBAL-TV, a mother and son encountered the animal walking around and looking in the drain, in evident distress.
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When firefighters responded, they used metal tools to pry open the drain. Then, a rescuer climbed into the drain and emerged a few minutes later, holding a tiny fawn in his arms. The man took the baby animal over to its mother, who had been watching the proceedings from a nearby patch of grass.
“The baby deer starts to cry, and our hearts begin to melt and not a second later, he just comes out of the drain holding this sweet baby deer that looks like it could be just merely days old,” Kim Brandwin, who captured a video of the rescue, told the news outlet.
“It was, at first, heart-wrenching, and I was definitely holding back all of my tears,” Brandwin added. “Then, when I actually realized I was videoing something actually spectacular, it felt heartwarming.”
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