A Swedish couple were skating out on a lake when they saw a creature thrashing in the water from a distance and decided to come to its aid. When they got closer, they saw that it was a huge moose in distress that had fallen through the ice and was desperately trying to free itself.

In a video of their encounter, the couple approaches slowly and admits that they don’t know how they’re going to save the moose that is clearly much bigger than them, meaning they wouldn’t be able to simply lift it out of the water. After some quick thinking on the part of Viktor Johannessen and his partner Sigrid Sjosteen, the two skaters and one other helper start chopping away at the ice to clear a path for the moose to escape.

In the text below the video it says,

“On our way to the hole, we saw the moose make several attempts at getting out of the water, but it could neither get up nor break the ice to get into shore. My partner, Sigrid Sjösteen, eagerly started to chop a pathway to shallower water, where it could reach the bottom and get out. We took turns chopping for about 30 minutes before the moose was out of danger.”

Try as it might, the moose appeared to be unable to move its back legs to push itself out of the water. This is likely because the water was so cold that it temporarily paralyzed or slowed down its movements. During the process, the moose even got tired and needed to be coaxed into moving again once the path had been cleared for it.

Despite the risk that being on weak ice posed for the skaters, they stopped at nothing until the moose had made its way safely onto the shore. Though the moose was a bit shaky and needed time to get its bearings on land again, it walked back into the forest after the ordeal was over and had these humans to thank for saving its life. It’s unlikely that the moose would have survived if it weren’t for the intervention of these kind humans performing this selfless act for the struggling creature.

Video of the encounter has reached over one million views and can be seen below.

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This article (Swedish Ice Skaters Rescue Giant Moose Trapped In Frozen Lake [Video]) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and True Activist.