9 Baby Ducklings Rescued From Woodbridge Storm Drain

WOODBRIDGE, NJ — It's a Mother's Day rescue story, the morning after Mother's Day.

Woodbridge firefighters and police officers, plus Woodbridge High School principal Glenn Lottman, had to work together early Monday morning to save a brood of nine baby ducklings that had fallen down a storm drain.

The rescue happened at 6:45 a.m. Monday when a man taking his dog for an early-morning walk around Woodbridge High School noticed a mother duck pacing and circling around a storm drain, squawking loudly, said Woodbridge Police Officer Marc Sokolow.

"This guy walking his dog saw the mother duck quacking and crying and circling around the storm drain," said Sokolow. "He called police."

Sokolow was the first to arrive but he could not pry open the storm drain without Woodbridge firefighters. They arrived and opened the drain and climbed down. However, the ducklings then ran, underground, to another storm drain about sixty feet away.

"We went down there and they just ran," said Sokolow. "So the principal of Woodbridge High School (Lottman) came out and he actually blocked one of the storm drains with cardboard, and brought bread from the high school cafeteria."

In total, there were four storm drains Woodbridge firefighters had to pry open and crawl into, and the nine baby ducklings kept running back and forth in between them, underground.

Sokolow said the rescuers had to lure the ducklings with breadcrumbs.

In total, "It took an hour of firefighters down there, with firefighters in each storm drain and me running back and forth collecting the ducklings as they were brought up," he said.

The most "incredible" part was that "the mother duck never went away. She backed off a bit when we arrived, and kept her distance, but she just kept watching as every single duckling was brought up. She stayed around, circling. It was her motherly instinct."

"I made sure we got them all and didn't leave any behind," he said. "I would have felt horrible if that happened. We're really lucky that guy called. If there had been a heavy rain, they would have been washed away. They were really tiny, just babies."

When all the ducklings were saved, the mother duckling and her babies "just walked away," he laughed. "She didn't even say thank you."

Firefighters Kogut, Drumm and Jago were involved.

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