Family of ducks rescued
Published: August 23, 2007
It took two hours and three different emergency service agencies to rescue a family of ducks from a Sherwood Park manhole early Wednesday.
It was about 6 a.m. when Corey Chantler and his wife spotted a pack of ducklings on Sherwood Drive struggling to get up on the curb. As the couple approached the creatures to help, seven of the eight ducklings fell down a storm drain.
Worried for the ducklings’ safety, the pair called police, who tried to pick them out with a shovel. That didn’t work, so eventually they called a Strathcona County work crew, which came by with a bucket and rope. In the meantime, workers blocked off two lanes of traffic in order to co-ordinate the rescue.
“So many had fallen down there, and the mother was wandering around trying to find out where they were,” Chantler, a 22-year-old electrician, said Thursday. “We didn’t want her to go home with one of eight babies.”
The county workers managed to get two of the ducklings into a bucket, but that left five still swimming in the manhole. Eventually, firefighters showed up, but by then the ducklings had swam down a pipe to another storm drain. The firefighters flooded the drain, which brought the creatures to the surface and allowed them to rescue four of the ducklings. The last one ended up in another pipe, but Chantler said he got assurances the duckling would pop out in a nearby lake.
Once rescued, the mother and ducklings trotted happily under a fence to a nearby golf course. By then, it was after 8 a.m., meaning Chantler was late for work.
Asked if it’s normal for firefighters to rescue animals, Strathcona County deputy fire chief Darrell Reid said the case was unusual.
“Typically, our criteria is that if people are putting themselves in danger in order to rescue an animal, then we would respond,” he said. “Once in a while, these things happen.”
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