KYLE MURPHYStaff Writer

While the snow fell in Tennessee last Friday, the Tullahoma Fire Department received a call to help rescue a duck trapped in an icy pond.

According to Marquita Masuda, she was on her way to feed the ducks, which she has done for 20 years, at a pond near Kingsridge Boulevard when she noticed a male duck stuck in the pond.

“When I went out Thursday, one of the male ducks was partially frozen, he could not get out of the ice,” Masuda said. “One leg was free and the other one, he could not just get out.”

She also saw the duck’s family, one other male and two females, were close by and, like her, were distressed about their friend. Since the trapped duck was about 15 feet from the shoreline, Masuda and her husband tried various methods to free the duck, but nothing was working. Masuda called the Tullahoma Fire Department at Ovoca Road and Lyle Russell, who founded the Middle Tennessee Raptor Center.

The fire department arrived shortly after with five firemen making their way to the pond. Masuda met with them and they walked through different scenarios on how to rescue the duck before one of the firemen decided to suit up in waders and waded out into the pond. Russell arrived on the scene and provided the fireman in the pond a pole to get the duck.

 “(The duck) was scooped closer to the fireman, the fireman picked him up in his arms and waded back and gave him to Lyle and Lyle had a towel and wrapped him in a towel,” she said.

Though the duck was rescued, it wasn’t acting normal, so the fire crew asked Russell what to do next, given his bird knowledge.

“He just needed to get warm,” Russell said. “That ice made his legs not work right for a little bit.”

Russell took the duck in and let it recover in a warm environment for two nights before returning it to the pond on Saturday.

 “We took him back out there and back in the pond,” he said. “He was warmed up and ready to go.”

Russell praised the fire department for their quick response to the scene.

“That’s definitely out of their wheelhouse, but they did the job and did a great job getting him out and getting him safe,” Russell said.

Masuda said she was thankful for both the fire department for coming out to rescue the duck and for Russell for taking care of the duck and returning him to the pond.

“They came out and they were persistent,” Masuda added. “They took their time, they weren’t rushed, and I really appreciate that them taking the duck seriously. That was just wonderful, otherwise the duck would have stayed out there.”

Check out the video the City of Tullahoma posted about the rescue on its official Facebook page here.