DUBOIS, Pa. —  Driving past the campus, Samantha and Danielle Laird spied a good Samaritan trying to get a momma duck and baby ducks off the road when two of the babies dropped into the storm drain on a busy PA-255. They immediately stopped to help, calling Clearfield County 911 for assistance.

When asked about stopping to help, Samantha Laird said, “When we know we can help something, [I feel that] a lot of people would drive by and just let it happen. Our hearts are too big for that.”

Penn State DuBois Officer Cody Haag received the call from the 911 dispatch center and jumped into action, contacting the Clearfield County Control to get assistance from the fire and police departments. DuBois City Fire Chief, Tony Roy, along with additional firefighters arrived on the scene, to direct traffic and assist in the rescue.

Chief Roy stated, “We were called to come extricate and we got the ducks out of the drain with the help of the Penn State team.”

Penn State DuBois technical services crew utilized campus machinery to carefully remove the grate on the storm drain and move the ducklings to safety. Doug Snell, a member of the technical services team said, “we heard the call come over the scanner, so we came to check it out. We got our backhoe and were able to get them out to safety.”

Officer Haag expressed his satisfaction with the teamwork and sense of community in the City of DuBois, “Community is very important. With the police department and fire department working together, along with our tech services team, everyone joined together to get the job done.”

The Lairds shared their joy with the emergency services. “We appreciate that everybody actually came out to help, it was pretty quick that somebody got here to get the baby ducks out, so it shows that our city’s pretty good.”