TOMS RIVER – Not all heroes wear capes… When Chad Wallace saw a distressed fawn stuck in the lagoon, he knew he had to dive in and save it.
“I’m not going to let him die,” Wallace said in a TikTok video that’s now reached over seven million views.
The video, posted by his wife Cara, shows a baby deer struggling to swim in the lagoon near the docks and bulkheads of homes. Without hesitation, Wallace jumped into the water to save the fawn.
“We were at a graduation party. While we were there, my wife came over to me a said there was a baby deer drowning in the water,” Wallace told Jersey Shore Online during a phone interview. “It didn’t even take a thought. It really was just an impulse to save it.”
The fawn had been stuck under the docks of the lagoon in the Windsor Park neighborhood of Toms River. Wallace explained how the water could range anywhere from 15 to 20 feet deep.
“There was no way for it to get out. When you get in there (the lagoon), there’s no stairs. It’s all docks that you pull your boat up to,” Wallace said. “I’m familiar with the lagoons since my parents live in Toms River and there was no way for that deer to get out at all without someone intervening.”
After rescuing the fawn, Wallace had initially called animal control but later released it back into nearby woods where it was reunited with its mother.
“I called animal control and waited for them for like 45 minutes. They were no help since it was a holiday weekend,” Wallace said. “So I went on Google Maps and was able to find a patch of woods. When I found the patch of woods at the end of the lagoon, right when we pulled up a mother deer was standing there screaming.”
After the video was posted on TikTok, it was then shared by an animal page on Facebook and has now collected over 34 million views.
“You would have done the same thing,” Wallace wrote on a follow up video posted on TikTok. “I didn’t expect this at all… it’s just a normal day for me,” Wallace said about the overwhelming response from the video.
