Last week, Kailey Chase, a mail carrier with the U.S. Postal Service, walked down a sidewalk on her route. As she approached a building, she noticed a ball of fluff on top of a storm grate.
A tired squirrel looked up at Chase. But … where was his tail?
Kailey Chase
“As I got closer, I realized that it was stuck in the grate,” Chase told The Dodo. “It looked like he [or] she had totally given up.”
Chase’s heart went out to the tiny creature and she knew she had to try and help.
“At first it tried to squirm around as I came near it,” she said. “Which is when I actually realized that it was really stuck in there, and all I can think is, ‘How in the world was it able to get stuck like that?’”
Kailey Chase
Chase has been a mail carrier for almost a decade. She’s seen her fair share of sticky situations, but this was new.
Undeterred, Chase removed her sweater to keep the squirrel warm and both of them safe.
Kailey Chase
She surveyed the situation and decided that the only way out for the squirrel was if Chase somehow lifted the grate and pushed the tail up and through.
“I didn’t want to yank on the poor thing and risk hurting it,” she said. “I tried taking a gentle approach, but of course those grates are super heavy and I was worried if I moved it around too much that with my luck, the grate would fall down into the hole.”
Kailey Chase
In a video Chase posted on Facebook, viewers can see her try to lift the grate unsuccessfully, pause for a moment, then come up with a plan.
Chase grabbed a nearby rock to prop the grate open while she slid her hand underneath the squirrel and gently eased him free.
Kailey Chase
As soon as she lifted the squirrel out, Chase wrapped him in her sweater and let him rest. He was visibly exhausted, likely after exerting so much effort trying to escape.
“[He] just snuggled up in my sweater,” she said. “It was so heartwarming.”
Kailey Chase
Moments later, Chase placed the squirrel on the ground. The ball of fluff started moving away, but Chase messaged someone who lived nearby, asking them to check the area later. She wanted to make sure the little guy wasn’t badly injured.
Sure enough, the squirrel was gone by the time the neighbor checked.
Though the rescue mission interrupted Chase’s route for about 20 minutes, it never occurred to her not to stop and help.
As Chase wrote on Facebook: “Every life matters, big or small.”
