Woodchuck rescued after getting head stuck in sewer grate

Police and public works employees were involved in a rescue operation in Danvers, Massachusetts, at around 10:30am on Friday morning.



A woodchuck had been found with his head sticking up through the corner of a sewer grate, his head visible through the grate, his body below. Two woman walking dogs spotted the stuck rodent in the road, said John Barbieri, a Department of Public Works foreman. “His face was partway up through the storm drain grate,” Barbieri said.

The groundhog must have got into the catch basin, somehow, then got his head stuck in the opening, he said. Street Division employees Paul Kirby and Walter Kornachuk worked to free the woodchuck. Police from Danvers and Wenham also responded. “We popped the grate with a pick and we moved it to the side of the road,” Barbieri said.



Once the DPW workers picked up the grate, they gently moved it on its side to the grass just off the road with the groundhog dangling, its head still caught. “He just needed some leverage,” a woman can be heard saying on a video. With that added leverage, the groundhog freed itself, gave a dazed look and took off into the woods.

You can see the video, seemingly filmed on a very old potato, here.