Deer in neighborhoods are not unusual. One on the porch is.

&#8220It was about 10 o’clock, maybe a little after,” said the Rev. Ed Hightower, describing how his wife, Lillian, summoned him after hearing a noise at the front door of their Woodland Drive home.

&#8220I thought a tree fell on the house,” Mrs. Hightower said.

When Hightower looked, he saw a spike buck, which had been chased by a dog, entangled in the wrought iron around the porch at their home near Halls Ferry Road’s intersection with Cain Ridge.

&#8220His left back leg was through the railing,” Hightower said, adding that it was so far through the gaps that the deer’s hip was banging against the metal.

The level of excitement intensified.

&#8220He was kicking frantically,” Hightower said.

And the dog was barking just as frantically as the deer was struggling.

Hightower said as he tried to free the deer, the dog kept barking and keeping the deer frenzied.

The pastor’s words were to no avail. &#8220I tried stroking him to calm him down,” Hightower said. &#8220Every time I’d pull his leg to get it out, he would pull it back harder.”

He said the struggle lasted about 20 minutes, even attracting onlookers.

As a result of the back-and-forth struggle, the deer scraped a considerable amount of hair off his leg and hip. Tuesday afternoon, it remained scattered in the Hightowers’ front yard. But that was not the only injury, slight as it may have been, that the deer suffered.

&#8220Mrs. (Suzanne) McKay told my wife how much blood was on my hand,” Hightower said. But it wasn’t his, it was all from the scrapes on the deer’s leg.

The injuries were apparently superficial.

&#8220When I last saw him he was headed that way,” Hightower said, pointing to a wooded ravine across the street from his house. &#8220With the dog right behind him. I haven’t seen (the deer) or the dog since.”

Hightower said the buck appeared to be young, possibly about 2 years old and weighing 70 to 75 pounds. Its small antlers were only about 3 or 4 inches long.

&#8220The dog that was chasing him was almost as big as he was,” Hightower said.

This is not the first experience the Hightowers have had with deer in the neighborhood where they’ve lived since the 1940s.

&#8220I’ve seen deer ever since I’ve lived here,” Lillian Hightower said.