A duckling is back with its mom after getting rescued with the help from two Town of Morrisville employees.
Laura Crumpler, Morrisville Senior Center manager, was getting ready for a program Tuesday when she said, “I had seniors come in and let me know that there was a mama duck and her baby outside just squawking her head off because one fell in the storm drain in the parking lot of the McCrimmon Corners Shopping Center.”
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Crumpler went outside and saw for herself, a mother duck pacing frantically around a storm drain.
Crumpler reached out to Morrisville’s stormwater hotline and left a message. A few minutes later Stormwater Engineer Brad Gagnon called back to say he was on the way.
Crumpler walked him over to where the duckling was in the drain.
Gagnon said, “Mama duck was up there, 'quack, quack, quack, quack,' freaking out. You could hear the little duckling down in the catch basin.”
Gagnon was able to get the grate off, but the noise scared the duckling and it ran down deeper into the pipe.
Once Gagnon got himself down into the pipe he couldn’t find the duckling.
“I started on my hands and knees, just kind of crawling through the pipe," he said. "The first time I tried to reach out, the duck took off and kept going further. So, I eventually was able to trap it and pick it up.”
Once safe in Gagnon's hand, the duckling settled down.
"I wasn't worried it was going to try and run away or anything," he said. "I was able to crawl back out and hand it back to his mom."
Crumpler said, “Brad came over and saved the day.”