MEDINA COUNTY -- Laura Jordan admits she feels like a mother hen.

On a farm in Medina County, Jordan has taken hundreds of injured birds under her wing and nursed them back to health. Jordan runs the Raptor Center, a sanctuary for injured birds of prey.

But the Sunday after Christmas, Jordan got an unusual phone call. A group of hunters came across a sick bird that fell out of a tree three feet tall.

"When I got the call I didn't really think it was an eagle," Jordan said. "I get a lot of calls about them and they turn out to be redtail hawks."

Jordan told the hunters to correl the bird in as big of a garbage can as they could find.

Massillon attorney Thomas Kimmins, his son and son-in-law were hunting on Kimmins' farm in December. Late in the afternoon, the group had only seen one deer. But their luck was about to get much better. A member of the hunting party heard a crashing noise in the woods.

"He heard it come down out of the tree," Kimmins said. "He thought it was a limb breaking or something like that.

"We looked and we said, 'Holy cow. That looks like a bald eagle.'"

The hunters eventually learned that the Raptor Center of Medina County would take the bald eagle. Jordan has no doubt that the hunters saved the eagle's life.

Jordan said the eagle had lead poisoning from something it ate. The eagle's digestive system was full of lead shot.

Yet after a week of injections to neutralize the lead, the eagle is putting on weight again.

"She is very sore from the injections," Jordan said. "She doesn't want to fly yet. She'll let me know when she's ready. She will get anxious and start looking up at the sky."

"It does something to your soul," Jordan said while feeding another eagle at the Raptor Center. "They are beautiful birds. And to release one is such a wonderful experience."