Middlesex manager, cop rescue ducklings
Wednesday was just ducky for Adam Hartwig, Middlesex Township manager.
Hartwig was chatting with Alex Mills, a township police officer, at about 8 a.m. when a 911 dispatcher requested an officer respond to the Eagle Ridge section of Weatherburn Heights housing development.
Residents there had called 911 to report that the eight ducklings in a neighborhood nest were missing, and the mother mallard was flying excitedly over a catch basin in the road.
When the residents approached the catch basin, they relayed to the dispatcher that they could hear frantic peeping from deep inside.
So Hartwig and Mills hopped inside a Middlesex cruiser and drove to the scene.
Once there, the pair pried up the grate over a storm drain where the pathetic peeps could be heard.
While a few ducklings were easily reachable in the catch basin, others were about 15 feet inside the pipe into which Hartwig had wedged himself.
After some frantic back and forth waddling and relentless coaxing by Hartwig, he was able to grab the ducklings and hand them to Mills, who was armed with a plastic Easter bucket.
The entire operation took about an hour.
Hartwig brushed off any suggestion that he is now the hero of the local mallard population.
“It’s just another day at the office,” he said.
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