Watch: Firefighters Rescue Overweight Rat Stuck in Manhole Cover
If you’ve lived on this planet more than a decade or two, you’ve probably experienced the unpleasant shock of trying to put on familiar clothes and not fitting.
Perhaps you were shopping and spotted an adorable dress that looked like it should fit. But when you get into the dressing room and try it on, you realized there is no way you’re getting out again without turning yourself upside-down and hearing a few threads snap.
Fortunately, fabric has a little give. Even if you get stuck, you won’t die. Metal is different.
This German rat spotted a hole that looked big enough to fit through. Many rats can squeeze themselves through holes no bigger than a quarter, and this should have been a piece of cake.
The rat, though, had probably eaten too much and its eyes hadn’t had time to catch up, so it got stuck. The manhole cover it had decided to sneak through held it fast at the hips. It squeaked and thrashed, but to no avail.
In many places, that would have been the end of the road for the doomed rodent. Most people aren’t especially fond of rats and wouldn’t have done anything to help.
Luckily, some caring soul saw the hopeless creature and called for help. As a result, eight members of the local volunteer fire department showed up as well as Michael Sehr, a specialist who started Berufstierrettung Rhein Neckar, an animal-rescuing service in Germany.
“She had a lot of winter flab and was stuck fast at her hip — there was no going forward or back,” Sehr said, according to BBC.
It may seem like a lot of fuss over a small, disliked animal, but Sehr pointed out that it would have ended poorly and the creature deserved better than that.
“Even animals that are hated by many deserve respect,” he said.
“For a gentle liberation, the grate was raised by the fire brigade bensheim-Auerbach, so the rat could be the from the other side,” the rescuer wrote on Facebook.
“The Rat could be released unharmed. After the successful rescue, the finder gave the tierretter (animal rescuer) a little thank you.”
There are several photos showing two young ladies standing by Sehr as he showed off the cute little thank you note they had written him.
“At 2:35 pm the Auerbach volunteer fire brigade was alerted by the Bergstrasse control center to a technical assistance assignment in the Schillerstrasse,” the Volunteer Fire Department Auerbach Facebook page read.
“In a backyard, a rat stuck in one of the holes in a manhole cover. Together with the also present professional animal rescue Rhein Neckar the animal was freed by the forces from his helpless situation.”
The rat was immediately released and ran off to continue doing ratty things. It seemed to disappear back into the sewer system, but hopefully, it learned its lesson and won’t try to pop through one of those holes again until it has lost some weight.
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