This made my day: Passers-by climb into Redhill canal, spend 4 hours trying to save frightened chick

Multiple strangers were brought together through a shared mission: To catch a chick that fell into in a canal.

A video shared to Reddit on Monday (Jan 22) by user FragileExprezz shows two men climbing into a canal in Redhill to save a seemingly distressed chick which was separated from its mother.

After one of the men captured the chick, he released it into the grass patch beside the canal.

However, the chick had its own plans — it dashed into a smaller drain connected to the canal and hid there.

The Redditor then stayed back to watch over the chick, which still seemed scared and distressed.

A mother and son pair that was passing by then tried to help the Redditor catch the chick while it was in the smaller drain, but their efforts were to no avail.

"We could not catch hold of it. It zoomed past so fast!" The Redditor said in her post.

The chick ended up at the same large canal for the second time after about two hours, in what the Redditor called an "omg moment".

However, this proved to be for the better.

"It was actually easier to rescue the chick at the big longkang (canal) rather than the small one (referring to the drain) as the space was too tight to crawl in," the Redditor said.

Finally reunited

She explained in her post that Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres) rescuers arrived later and expertly caught the chick within two minutes.

[[nid:661128]]

"They made it look so easy, but believe me – it takes a lot of agility just to climb in and out of that big longkang," the user said.

The user added that even after the Acres rescuers had released the chick, it was skittish and went on to hide in a rat burrow nearby.

"It took a couple of minutes more for it to finally emerge at the other end of the tunnel and run towards mommy," she said, adding that the whole rescue took some four hours. 

The chick was seen reunited with its mother at the end of the video, running alongside her. 

The Redditor concluded her post saying: "I would like to sincerely thank the two gentlemen, the mother and son team and Acres for the final rescue. It really shows that true heroes do not need to wear a cape. Kudos to them!"

Responding to AsiaOne's queries, a spokesperson from Acres said on Tuesday that their wildlife rescue team received a call on Monday about a jungle fowl chick that was stranded in a large drain.

"The chick's mother was around, but stressed as she could not rescue her chick," the spokesperson said.

"Our rescue volunteers Julia and Catherine entered the drain to safely retrieve the chick. The chick was then successfully reunited with its mother."

The spokesperson added: "In our urban landscape, baby or juvenile animals can often get stranded when moving around. The best thing to do is to reunite them."

"If you see a infant or juvenile animal that is stranded, do not immediately bring them home. Call the Acres wildlife rescue hotline for assistance at 9783 7782."

Back to square one

When contacted, the Redditor told AsiaOne on Tuesday morning that the chick had fallen inside the canal once again.

"I can hear the frantic mother and chick from my house," she said. 

bhavya.rawat@asiaone.com