Watch nursing home residents go ‘deer hunting’ in cheerful video

• Nursing homes like the Continental Manor in Ohio have been hit hard with the COVID-19 restrictions.
• To combat the blues, admin and staff staged a “deer hunting” activity indoors with staff serving as deer and residents as the hunters.
• The video has now gone viral with 30 million views and tens of thousands of likes and comments.

---

A video on Facebook of people donning deer antlers and snouts with others shooting darts at them with the caption, “Residents had fun deer hunting today!” has gone viral.

Since it was posted, it has now been viewed 30 million times! It has also garnered tens of thousands of likes and comments.

Continental Manor’s Activity Director Lisa Beach said, “I am always looking for something new and fun to keep our residents busy during these trying times. This was certainly a hit. They really had a good time. The staff here is really great about jumping in and helping anytime they can with activities like this.”

COVID-19 restrictions have really put a damper on the nursing home’s visiting arrangements as residents have not been allowed visitors. And if family can, they can only talk through glass windows.  Which made Beach hatch the idea when a colleague showed her a video of a similar indoor activity.

Beach explained, “I got the idea to turn our dining room into a forest and bring out all of the Christmas trees before we decorated them. It was such a blast.”

And it was not just the residents who enjoyed the indoor activity with a twist. The staff had just as much fun “if not more” than the residents at the nursing home, joked Beach.

The staff had a grand time prancing like deer being hunted complete with antlers and snouts around the makeshift forest of Christmas trees.  Residents served as hunters with their Nerf guns shooting foam darts at the deer.

In addition to having fun on that day, residents have now become viral Facebook stars. “All called their family to brag about going viral,” said Beach.  And instead of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, residents had “movie star signs” outside their doors.

The “forest” trees have now been decorated and the entire building is scheduled to be decorated too for the holidays.  Continental Manor residents are in for a merry Christmas in the time of the coronavirus pandemic. 

Source: Today