Stag’s Splashy Exit Leaves Laguna Talking : Wildlife: Deer crashes through home, swims to sea. Lifeguards turn it back, but it dies anyway.

A frantic deer crashed through the kitchen window of an elderly Laguna Beach couple’s home Saturday morning, then smashed out through a second window before dashing into the Pacific Ocean and swimming a mile and a half toward Catalina.

The exhausted, bleeding animal died about two hours later, after lifeguards on paddle boards were finally able to turn the 190-pound buck around and swim it into shore at Oak Street. Animal control officers, who captured the deer in front of 200 onlookers as police held back traffic on Coast Highway, were rushing it to a veterinarian when it died.

“He was in extremely bad shape,” said Laguna Beach Animal Control officer Keith Hall, who was treating the animal when it died. “He must have ruptured something and was bleeding from the inside. I don’t know how he swam for so long.”

“It’s kind of sad, because the deer ended up dying after all of the effort to save its life,” said police Sgt. Doris Weaver. “But, after running through two windows, it sustained some pretty serious internal injuries.”

Hall said it is not unusual for deer to wander so close to homes in Laguna Beach, but noted that they rarely enter the ocean. He estimated that there are approximately 100 deer in area canyons.

Saturday’s bizarre events began shortly before 8:30 a.m., when the buck came crashing though a window at the home of Baird and Carol Coffin, who were sitting in their dining room eating breakfast.

“We thought the microwave had exploded,” said 82-year-old Baird Coffin. “Then all of a sudden, this big buck deer came into our living room. Then we heard another crash when he jumped out through our front bay window and ran away.”

Carol Coffin, 84, said: “I’ve never been so scared in my entire life.”

Neighbors told the couple that they had spotted the deer running frantically up and down the street before jumping over the Coffin’s back yard fence, where it apparently became trapped, Baird Coffin said.

“It was just the strangest thing,” he said. “It’s the kind of thing that takes 10 years off of your life, and I don’t have that many left.”

Laguna Beach lifeguards Scott Diedrich and Jeff Gilbert chased the agitated deer on their paddle boards for nearly two hours before they were able redirect it toward shore. The deer did not appear to be growing weaker despite its injuries and the 3-mile swim.

“That deer was swimming quite fast,” said Diedrich, 28. “He was swimming to Catalina. It was definitely mind-boggling.”

Saturday’s unusual rescue was actually the second time Diedrich and Gilbert have rescued deer from the ocean.

Gilbert, 29, saved a deer last October after it jumped into the water during the Laguna Beach wildfire, Diedrich said. In 1991, Diedrich was on duty when a deer ran across Pacific Coast Highway at Oak Street and swam out to sea. In each incident, the deer survived the ordeal.

“I didn’t even know deer could swim,” said Diedrich, who was clearly upset Saturday morning when he learned that the deer had died.

“He was so exhausted from his swim and he had all of those cuts,” Diedrich said. “We were really worried about his condition. We put all of our energy and effort into it to ensure that he would survive.”