Utah: Animal Control and a city Drain Inspector rescue baby quail trapped in storm drain

UTAH -- Like Lassie of old who rescued Timmy, two Pleasant Grove city employees saved four baby quail from a well Monday.

In a slight departure from their regular work schedules, Sandy Sargent, Pleasant Grove's animal control officer, and Jake Pettersson, a city storm drain inspector, answered the cries of the baby quail, who had fallen down a storm drain outside the Pleasant Grove City Library on East Center Street. They were alerted to the quail’s plight by a group who were meeting at the library.

“We all heard tiny squeaking sounds and … there were two quail right outside our meeting door in a state of anxiety. We saw the parents running around frantically and squawking. We also heard tiny little tweeting sounds coming from down in the grate,” said Sue Winmill, one of the women at the library meeting.

“When I got the call, I was told they’d fallen down a window well," Sargent said. "When I got there, the ladies showed me the storm drain where the babies were. I thought, this is a whole different ball game. That storm drain is 10 to 15 feet deep. I really wasn’t sure if we’d be able to get down there.

“The ladies asked me if it was worth trying to get them out. Their parents were running back and forth calling to them, and the babies were cheeping back. My heart was breaking for them, so I had to.”

She couldn’t get the heavy storm grate off, so she called into the street department. Pettersson came out, and it took some public works machinery, a long ladder and a bucket to rescue the babies.

“Those babies, I don’t think I have ever held something so tiny in my hands. They were maybe the size of a 50-cent piece. They were so much tinier than, when I was looking down the drain I first thought they were,” Sargent said.

After Pettersson retrieved the quail from the drain, Sargent checked the babies, and surprisingly, none of them were injured in the fall. She couldn’t get near their parents, so she placed them in some bushes nearby. As soon as she and bystanders backed away, the parents came running.

“It was a happy reunion,” Sargent said.

The regular day-to-day duties of city employees usually involve less happy tasks, and Sargent’s usual animal dealings have less joyful outcomes.

“For me, when things like that happen, it makes it all worth it,” she said.

(Daily Herald - Aug 11, 2016)