Sacramento Supervisor Turns Animal Rescue Superhero, Saves Ducklings From Storm Drain

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — Sacramento Supervisor Patrick Kennedy has mostly been focused on the county response to the coronavirus pandemic, but he spent a few hours this week going into the Sacramento sewer system to save 10 ducklings trapped in a storm drain outside his Pocket neighborhood home.

Neighbors heard the ducklings making noise underground. The mother duck was frantically circling above ground.

"The mother duck was running in circles and just screaming if a duck can 'scream,'" Kennedy said.

Her trapped babies were peeping from below. It's a sound Kennedy's wife, won't forget.

"That little tiny 'peep peep peep,' you know," Judy Kennedy said.

Supervisor Kennedy lifted a manhole cover and climbed beneath the street with a flashlight to find the 10 ducklings inside one of the 12-inch pipes underground.

"And they actually started walking to me, and walking right into my hands," Kennedy said.

He reunited the ducklings with their mother. The family is now making "The Pocket Canal" waterway their home.

The duckling's dangerous odyssey underneath Sacramento city streets, thankfully unfolding just outside the home of this county supervisor—turned duck rescue superhero.

"Glad to do it," Supervisor Kennedy said.

Kennedy says the ducklings weren't the only animal he spotted while he was down there. He says a possum watched the whole rescue go down from about three feet away.