Every so often, I'll stumble across a simple, feel-good story about an animal being rescued by some folks, after getting caught in some sort of predicament. Often times, it's unfortunate interactions with human infrastructure—and this is no different—but I can still appreciate that some of us care enough to give aid when the need arises. After all these years, I've finally had my own personal experience with a rescue, so I feel obligated to share the story here.
Let's set the scene. It's the early morning, and a mother duck is taking a stroll across a stretch of pavement. She reaches a storm drain, and her large waders give her no trouble, as she waddles across the holes with ease. Unbeknownst to her however, the dozen ducklings she had in tow are having a lot more trouble navigating the obstacle; in fact, all of them slip right into the water a few feet below! They're all unharmed, but the chicks are too young to fly, and the mother is too large to retrieve them. Not being willing to abandon her babies, she stands outside the storm drain, and the quacking commotion catches the attention of some customers and employees.
This is where I finally am made aware of the situation by a rather distressed employee, who mentions what's happening and wants to save them. They weren't able to leave their post, and since there wasn't anyone else around, I suppose they thought it best to ask me if I could flag down the fire department when they arrived. I hadn't yet seen the duck, but you better believe I went right out there, and waited the several minutes it took to wave my hands, and get them up to speed with the info I had. I wasn't even the only person waiting, as a couple folks were already nearby—perhaps a little too close—to our rather stressed mom, and her crying babies. Thankfully, I think they were just concerned and curious, as letting them know the situation, and asking to give her some breathing room, was enough to keep things in check until the fire truck pulled up.
I was interested to see how they intended to save the ducklings, but it seems as if, like birds of their own, they decided to wing it. The only thing that was certain, was removing the grate from the storm drain. Now I've seen city workers do this before, where they'll use a special metal bar to levy the grate upward, and then shimmy the thing to the side if necessary for access. This is not what the fire department did; I couldn't even tell you if the guys had the tool on board. One of the bigger gentleman simply grabbed the large metal grate with his bare hands, lifted that thing straight up, and placed it off to the side. I wasn't sure it'd even come off without a special prying tool, but I guess all you really need is brute strength! To quote one of the other firemen, who was right beside him when he decided to just casually do that on his own:
“That guy is a monster!”
I figured they had it covered, but asked if I could help with anything, or if I should get out of their way. Surprisingly, they did want me to see if there were some tools around to help scoop the ducklings out, like a net or rakes. I went to go search; no nets, but some rakes, and some handled dustpans too, which could be a makeshift bucket perhaps! In that time, another solution was found though, and I suppose there's no reason why they wouldn't be trying all sorts of stuff in the heat of the moment. How'd they start bringing the ducklings back to the surface, and back to mom? A pole, with a tiny metal bucket duct taped to the end of it! I'm pretty certain that thing was made right on the spot, so maybe one of the other onlookers had something on hand from their car. Either way, within a few minutes, all twelve of the adorable babies were pulled out of the hole! Funnily enough, after mom got about half of them, she began to waddle off—albeit rather slowly. I'm not exactly sure what the logic was, but I suppose she got the better half of the litter, and thought that was good enough! A couple of people had to carry the little ducklings over, and then we had to encourage them to waddle away from us, and back to her. One in particular kept turning back at us, but eventually decided to join the rest of their family.
We all had our moments of cute noises and thanks, I waved off the fire department, and now I'm going to be enjoying this little slice of human decency for as long as I can. It feels hard to find these days, but being face to face with several people who were concerned about helping little creatures...that meant a lot. I suppose those articles about saving cats from trees and ducklings from drains really do happen from time to time. I obviously don't want to see more animals falling prey to simply existing near us, but I am glad good-natured folks deal with the fallout when it does.
All writing is licensed under CC-BY-ND with attribution to Foxfire. The FSF recommends this license for opinion pieces.