SCOTTSBURG, Ind. (WDRB) -- Skylar Thompson has gotten the kind of call where ordinary can turn into life-changing in an instant.
But for the Scott County sheriff's deputy, this was not one of those.
"We got a call for a sheet of metal in the roadway," Thompson said. "(Other deputies) determined it was a sheep in the roadway."
It was right by mile marker 37, in the southbound lanes on Interstate 65. Thompson went to help even though he's never been forced to deal with an unpredictable barnyard animal before. But neither had his fellow deputies or the sheriff.
"We usually have dogs, deer, those types of things," Scott County Sheriff Jerry Goodin said. "When they told me it was a sheep, it was obviously a little bit different."
They couldn't get in touch with animal control, and somebody had to do something. The animal was just loose on the highway.
So Thompson borrowed a lasso and went all cowboy.
"I think it's, more or less, I watch too much Yellowstone," he said with a smile.
The spirit of John Dutton, played by Kevin Costner on the TV show, was with him. Thompson got the sheep!
Thompson borrowed a lasso and went all cowboy, picking up skills he watched on the TV show, "Yellowstone."
"It was pure luck," he said.
"I said 'ewe have got to be kidding me,'" Goodin said. "Get it? E-w-e, Ewe have got to be kidding me, know what I'm saying?"
The sheep, who likely fell off a truck onto the interstate, was nursed back to health and returned to its owner. There was no reward for Thompson.
"A wool coat would be good," Goodin joked.
Thompson didn't want a reward or praise. He said it was all in a day's work, although he might have taken a cowboy hate.
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