Chester the toucan perches on an ACFD truck (courtesy of Maria Stagliano)
Chester the toucan perches on an ACFD truck (courtesy of Maria Stagliano)
Chester the toucan and Maria Stagliano pose with an ACFD truck (courtesy of Maria Stagliano)
Chester the toucan and Maria Stagliano pose with an ACFD truck (courtesy of Maria Stagliano)
Chester the toucan in the spring (courtesy of Maria Stagliano)
Chester the toucan (courtesy of Maria Stagliano)
Chester the toucan (courtesy of Maria Stagliano)
Chester the toucan (courtesy of Maria Stagliano)
Chester the toucan (courtesy of Maria Stagliano)
The Arlington County Fire Department came to the rescue of a trapped toucan this weekend after the bird got stuck behind a Pentagon City dishwasher.
Chester the toucan — a TikTok star with over 830,000 followers — has since recovered and is “back to being his normal chaotic self,” his owner, Maria Stagliano, told ARLnow.
Meanwhile, a couple local firefighters have a story they too can tell for years to come.
“This will go down in the books,” firefighter Jake Easton told ARLnow. “My kids are jealous that I got to hold a toucan.”
The trouble began on Sunday when Chester, a chestnut-eared aracari toucan, took a fall into Stagliano’s toilet while flying around her bathroom.
Stagliano said she normally keeps the toilet lid closed, “because Chester is extremely clumsy and falls all over the place, everywhere, all the time.” But she happened to be cleaning that day.
“It was a freak moment where he, like, was flying over and, kind of like, lost his balance and then fell in, and then panicked,” Stagliano said. “And then I panicked and screamed.”
Stagliano grabbed Chester out of the toilet and took him to the sink to rinse him off. Once that was over, the bedraggled toucan “bolted for the ground” in search of a hiding spot.
It’s common for Chester to seek shelter in “some sort of little hiding space,” like under a couch or a table, Stagliano said. This time, however, he found somewhere new: a small hole leading to a space behind Stagliano’s dishwasher.
At first, the bird owner didn’t even know where he was. But when she heard some noises coming from behind the appliance, she took out her cellphone and got a video of the toucan “cowering in the corner” of a dark and dirty space.
“Chester just looked like somebody’s sleep paralysis demon, or something,” Stagliano said. “He was, like, wet. His feathers were revealing his purple skin underneath, all, like, wet and out of place. He didn’t have any of his color. He was like wide-eyed and staring off.”
Chester the toucan with a glass of Guinness (courtesy of Maria Stagliano)
Stagliano knew she had to move the dishwasher to get Chester out, but she was afraid to damage her apartment. She tried calling maintenance, but since it was over the weekend, she was told that no one could respond for at least two days.
“I was like, OK, well, thank you. I’m going to call the fire department,” Stagliano said. “Please tell them where to go when they get here.”
A crew from Fire Station 5 responded to Stagliano’s request for assistance in a matter of minutes. They carefully pulled out the dishwasher and Stagliano scooped the exotic bird out.
Easton recalled being surprised by Chester’s size.
“It was quite surprising,” the firefighter said. “He was a lot smaller than I pictured a toucan. In my mind — my kids eat Fruit Loops — so I picture the toucan on the Fruit Loops container.”
Stagliano was “thrilled,” Easton said. She let the firefighters hold the bird and get photos with him, and as soon as she can, she hopes to pay a visit to the fire station to thank the crew.
In the meantime, Stagliano has patched up the hole under her dishwasher and is keeping the toilet lid firmly closed. Chester is doing well, she said, although he remains “a little bit wary of water” these days.
Over at ACFD, Easton is happy to have helped out in an animal rescue like none other.
“We did our job,” he said. “That was what we were there to do. … A job well done by the guys that were with me.”