It was an unexpected call firefighters in Barkhamsted will never forget. They helped free a moose that was stuck on a fence by the Saville Dam.
“We have farms in town. I would have expected a farm animal rescue or something like that, but I never would have thought a moose,” said Lt. Tyler O'Neil.
This was a first for O’Neil, who is a volunteer with the Riverton Fire Company. He was dispatched to help get a moose loose Friday night after it tried to hop a fence.
“His belly was resting on this fence. His body wasn’t impaled or anything, but he was kind of stuck there and couldn’t go,” O'Neil said.
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To set it free, they had to use a specific piece of equipment -- a hydraulic cutter, better known as the jaws of life.
“Normally it’s used for cars, but we can cut fences with it too and I just used this to cut the top and the bottom here and once this was free, the fence was able to move out from under the moose,” Lt. O’Neil said.
State wildlife officials say this is mating season for moose, so they will be wandering around and could find themselves trying to hop a fence. O’Neil says it’s a good reminder to warn drivers to watch out for moose on the roads as well.
“There’s been a few cars that have struck moose and it causes severe damage to the car and can seriously injure people inside,” he said.
As for the moose, it scampered off back into the nearby woods.
