Herd of deer stranded after frozen ice gives way

A herd of deer became stranded in a river after the piece of ice they were standing on started melting and floated downstream.

The strange scene was videoed by a couple who were at the Grande Ronde River in northern Oregon on February 6, looking for a place to fish.

They noticed a "bunch of ice" upstream and it wasn't until the ice started travelling that they noticed what was trapped on it.

"Just moments later, and to my surprise, three whitetail deer were swept down river on large chunks of ice," the woman who filmed the incident said.

"My heart sank at that moment because I knew there was nothing I could do to save them."

The couple drove approximately 350km downstream to keep checking on the deer.

Luckily, two of them had managed to jump to the riverbank.

The third was unaccounted for.

"We never saw it again but hoped it made it out somewhere along the way," the woman said.