A Paraguayan military officer has died after being attacked by a deer that ran an antler through his chest while he was serving in a security detail at the presidential residence in the capital, Asunción.
Infantry assistant sergeant Víctor Isasi Flecha, 42, died on Monday night as a result of “piercing injuries” caused by the animal, said a statement from the military forces of the South American country.
The deer was an axis deer from India, which had been donated to the presidential residence, the director of wildlife at the ministry of the environment, Frederick Bauer, told media.
An infantry spokesman, Víctor Urdapilleta, said that closed circuit cameras captured the moment when the soldier approached the deer and he was attacked.
“For unknown reasons he approached the area where the animals live and that’s where he was attacked. There has never been any such attack before,’” Urdapilleta told the newspaper ABC Color.
Flecha appeared to have made a movement which startled the animal, Urdapilleta said.
He was declared dead in a military hospital. Urdapilleta said there was no history of a similar attack by animals routinely kept in the presidential residence, which have included ostriches and ponies in previous administrations. The animals are kept in a restricted area and are not in routine contact with visitors to the residence, which is located in a residential area of the capital city.
