Hanover Fire Department rescued a dozen baby ducklings from a sewer grate Thursday morning, only to have their mother leave one of her babies behind. Employees at the Susquehanna Bank at 402 Eisenhower Drive arrived at work on Earth Day to find a mother duck wandering aimlessly around the parking lot, said employee Linda Sanders. At first, they thought she was lost, until they heard the chirps of a dozen ducklings coming from a sewer grate. "It was like she was trying to find someone to help her," Sanders said. And help they did. Bank employees called Hanover Borough, which directed the call to the water department. But the call for help ended up on the desk of Fire Commissioner James Roth. Roth sent an ambulance to the rescue, and firefighter Bryan Spickler entered the three-feet deep hole. From there, Spickler scooped up the babies by the handful and placed them safely into the lot, said fellow firefighter Dave Richards, who held the grate open. For a second, there was mass chaos as the newly freed birds scurried around until their mother got them back in line, Sanders said. The family then marched off safely toward the wetland behind Bon-Ton. And for everyone involved, it was a happy ending on Earth Day, courtesy of the Hanover Fire Department. But a few hours later, a customer entered the bank and told them one of the babies was wandering around lost in the parking lot, Sanders said. Two of the employees went outside and corralled the baby, putting him safely into a wastebasket. They went looking for the rest of its brothers and sisters, but to no available. It seemed like a sad ending to the day's heroics, until the bank employees called the Tractor Supply Company on Carlisle Street. The store sells baby chickens and ducks in the springtime, and the saved duckling was added to the mix. A store employee went to check on the babies Thursday evening and found that the bank's duckling had been "assimilated to the group."
Commissioner Roth said the fire department doesn't normally take rescue calls like that, but no one else was available. But Richards said unbeknownst to his boss, he's done three duckling rescues in his time as a firefighter. "This time a year they're so small, they fall in so easy," Richards said. But luckily the last little one didn't fall through the cracks. It's now for sale at Tractor Supply Company, looking for a new home.