A heartwarming family reunion took place unexpectedly Monday morning, when a crew of ducklings that had fallen down a storm drain was rescued by Aurora firefighters.
The day had begun as usual, Kevin Nickel, the Aurora Fire Department’s interim fire chief, explained, with crews at the department’s Central Fire Station on Broadway doing vehicle checks on the fire trucks.
Then, Nickel recalled, a passerby noticed a duck near a storm drain across from the station looking “pretty upset,” and realized that her ducklings were below. So, the man came over to notify the firefighters, who got to work on the rescue.
Nickel said he had been in his office when the situation begin to unfold, and then went out for the response.
Firefighters grabbed some tools and pried the storm drain off, he explained. The department used a truck to block off the street until the incident was resolved because the ducklings’ mother had gone into the street.
They then sent one of the firefighters down and, using a bucket, were able to gather all the baby ducks and pull them out, Nickel said, as their mother waited anxiously nearby.
The reunion was “a touching moment,” he recalled. A video posted to the department’s Facebook page has since racked up thousands of likes and several hundred comments.
“It was a nice way to start your Monday morning,” Nickel said.
Then, with all her ducks in a row, the mother and her eight ducklings marched down the path to the nearby Fox River and returned to the water, said Nickel, who kept an eye on the family afterwards.
“She made sure they were safe first,” Nickel said, but “then you could tell she was reprimanding them.”
Baby ducks falling into storm drains is an issue the fire department encounters occasionally in the spring, Nickel said, likely due to the ducklings’ small size and instinct to follow their mother rather than look out for danger, as well as the sound of splashing from the storm drain.
But rescues like these are all a part of the job.
“No matter the size, our core mission is to save lives,” Nickel said.
mmorrow@chicagotribune.com
