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Kirk Barharn was on his way into Penticton for one final check up on the ankle he broke in November when he was forced to test it out on the side of the road.
Making the drive to Penticton Regional Hospital from their home at Link Lake around 9 am on Tuesday, Barharn and his wife Angie Hillmer spotted moose tracks in fresh snow near Thirsk Lake.
Kirk started to look out for the animal that produced the tracks and suddenly saw it in his rear-view mirror standing on a little bluff beside the road.
“(Angie) wanted to take a picture of it, so I backed up and I guess I freaked it out a bit,” Kirk told NowMedia.
“It tried to run away and as it tried to go over the fence, it was quite steep and I guess its hooves kind of slipped as it tried to jump over. So instead of going over it, it got stuck in it and flopped right over.”
It happened right as the couple pulled over, so they actually saw the large animal fall over the Kirk knew immediately that he had to make things right.
“Even though I’m kind of hopping around still, I climbed up the bank and it didn’t move. It’s almost like it knew I was going to help it or something. It was eyeballing me with this big red eyeball,” Kirk explained with a chuckle.
He said the first hoof came out of the fencing quite easily, but the second one was a trickier task.
“I was basically giving it all I had, just pulling it and torquing it and twisting it and finally I was able to pop it out,” he said. “As soon as I did that, it jumped up and ran away. It looked fine.”
Kirk was able to free the animal without the use of any tools, but said he was ready to go home and grab his bolt cutters if he needed to cut it free.
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