Below is a Facebook post from the Oregon State Police .
On January 16, 2022, Oregon State Police Fish & Wildlife Sr. Trooper Rzewnicki received a call from dispatch that a landowner and contractor in the Knappa area (80 miles northwest of Portland) had reported a deer was stuck in a ditch he had dug for wires, leading to some new home construction.
When Sr. David Trooper Rzewnicki arrived, he found the animal still alive and stuck in the ditch and that the “deer” was a calf elk. The landowner thought that it had been in the ditch for at least 12-18 hours.
After a few failed attempts to free the elk, Rzewnicki got into the ditch, behind the calf elk’s head, and was able to wrangle the calf elk out of a ditch. A now muddy, Sr. Trooper Rzewnicki, reported that the calf elk appeared unhurt as it ran off into the woods.
(Photo credit: Oregon State Police)