It’s not every day a call comes into the fire district that makes firefighters happy, but when it comes to rescuing animals, Battalion Chief Max Dosher said it’s the kind of call they love.
“There's nothing better than rescuing a dog or rescuing some ducks or helping a moose get out of the way," he said. "We really enjoy those kinds of calls.”
Dosher said a couple of weeks ago a call came into the station about a duck pacing back and forth, acting distressed.
“There was a mama duck walking along Landmark Boulevard right in between Whole Foods and the outlet malls. A sheriff responded, kind of shut down traffic and figured out that we had four baby ducks in a storm drain,” Dosher said. “Our crews responded and, with the assistance of the sheriff, pulled the grate off the storm drain and got down in there and rescued all four ducks and reunited them with mom and they went on their way.”
The happy endings don’t stop there. On June 11 Dosher said another 911 call came in about a person’s dog stuck in a culvert pipe.
“This is a pretty good Park City story. The dog was chasing a marmot, the marmot ran into the culvert. The dog chased the marmot into the culvert and got stuck. Our crews responded after the owner of the dog called 911,” he said.
Dosher said the dog was easy to rescue because he wasn’t too far into the culvert. The marmot was a different story.
“So what our crews did is they inflated a hose that we would use to put out a house fire or a car fire and they use that to push through the culvert and push the marmot out the other side,” he said. “Luckily the dog was on a leash at that time. The marmot went on its way and the dog was also uninjured.”
Dosher said he was grateful the marmot wasn’t a skunk.
