NORTH WILDWOOD – Fire departments have the reputation of responding to every type of emergency – even kittens stuck in trees.
On Wednesday, June 11, at around 10:30 a.m., the North Wildwood Fire Department got a new one – a call about a snake in the engine compartment of a pickup truck.
Capt. Jaime Pluta said that after the department received the call from a resident of the Anglesea section Ladder 2 responded, and when the firefighters arrived the man told them he watched a black snake go down his driveway and up under his truck into the engine compartment.
The snake, Pluta said, wound itself around the truck’s fan and settled in.
“(The resident) popped the hood, and it had coiled itself around the fan and stayed and didn’t want to come out,” Pluta said.
Firefighter Tim Welsh put on gloves, grasped the snake close to the head and carefully removed it from around the fan. The resident subsequently returned the snake to its natural habitat.
“There are marshes around the Anglesea area,” Pluta said.
Pluta has spent 25 years as a firefighter and has been a career firefighter for nine years. This is the third animal rescue he can recall over his time with the department. Last year baby ducks were pulled from a storm grate. The department also responded to a cat that went up a utility pole.
“Firefighter Welsh was along with me on each of those,” Pluta said. “You just never know what you are going to see on any day.”
Contact the reporter, Christopher South, at csouth@cmcherald.com or call 609-886-8600, ext.128.
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