When police dashcam and body camera footage makes the news, it’s usually a bummer. Sometimes you’re watching drunk drivers sway on the side of the road next to vehicles they shouldn’t have been driving, sometimes you’re watching footage of a routine traffic stop that goes horribly wrong.
But every once in a while, that familiar angle from the dashboard of a police cruiser brings you an unexpected delight: In this case, the daring (or, okay, fairly simple, but that only makes it more delightful) rescue of a dozen ducklings near Pearland’s Business Center by Sergeant Adam Carroll and Officer Matthew Webb of Pearland PD.
According to the department’s Facebook page, “Sgt. Carroll was alerted by the mother duck” that her ducklings were in trouble, and in the video, you can see the mama pacing, in obvious distress, searching for the flock. After Carroll stops, Webb pulls up, and the sergeant explains the situation.
“Their mama’s up there running around going crazy,” Carroll tells him. “The mama duck was going back and forth, so I stopped, and I was like, ‘It’s peculiar that a duck is out here away from water by itself.'” Then Carroll noticed the storm drain, and the chirping coming from inside, at which point he and Webb began the task of removing the lid from the drain. Carroll descends into the drain to retrieve the ducklings one by one while Webb, flashlight in tow, cups his hands to receive each of the feathery lil’ fellas and place it in the grass with the mother.
Carroll and Webb certainly seem amused by the task they find themselves undertaking in the video, but also diligent and thorough in the way they execute it. Carroll borrows Webb’s flashlight at the end to ensure that he didn’t miss any stragglers, and only when they’re certain that no duck has been left behind do they replace the drain. The baby ducks, Webb tells him, “all started shooting off toward” their mother in the tall grass, and they are presumably going to be much more careful about where they walk in the future.
