Wild raccoon rescue on Pike halts rush hour
In a rescue more daring more than saving a cat from a tree, Newton firefighters responded to an unusual call Monday night, halting traffic on both sides of the Mass Pike to save a raccoon stranded on a highway lamp post.
“We don’t typically do this,” Newton Fire Lt. Michael Bianchi told the Herald Tuesday.
Newton firefighters got a call from the State Environmental Police Monday evening about rescuing the daredevil raccoon that scaled a lamp post around mile 26, eastbound on the Mass Pike. Ladder 1 from the Newton Fire Department arrived on scene around 6:30 p.m., shutting down traffic in one lane on each side of the highway.
It’s impossible to know what drove the raccoon up the lamp post, but officials had concerns for both the animal’s welfare and the safety of rush hour commuters.
“Of course, they didn’t want it to cause an accident,” Bianchi said.
Bystander Ari Herzog caught video of the full rescue as the truck extended its ladder up toward the lamp, where the animal had burrowed in near the
‘... as I got closer, there were blinking lights. I thought maybe it was an accident. So I got closer and I see the ladder and I’m like what the heck?...Then I look over and I see this raccoon running westbound across the highway, and I’m like, are you (expletive) kidding me?
bulb. Two firefighters climbed the ladder.
One ladderman lassoed the raccoon down from the lamp and onto the end of the ladder. It then became a game of cat-andmouse — or raccoon-andJake — as the animal squirmed around the ladder. At one point it dangled itself off the ladder’s rungs as the firefighter tried to coax it down toward the truck.
Firefighters finally got the raccoon into a carrier and brought it down safely. Tony Massarotti, cohost of the wildly popular ‘Felger & Mazz’ sports radio show, happened to be sitting in the traffic caused by the raccoon chase. He was on his way to hit golf balls after recording the 98.5 FM program.
“I thought well what the (expletive) is this? And as I got closer, there were blinking lights. I thought maybe it was an accident. So I got closer and I see the ladder and I’m like what the heck? I didn’t know if they were cleaning up an accident or what,” Massarotti told the Herald. “Then I look over and I see this raccoon running westbound across the highway, and I’m like, are you (expletive) kidding me? We’re going through all this for a rac
– Tony Massarotti, Herald columnist
coon?” Massarotti said one of the responding crew members stopped to ask whether he would talk about the raccoon chase on his radio program. He was able to proceed past the scene in about 15 minutes, he said.
“I’ve lived here my whole life, and I’ve never seen a backup for a raccoon dangling from a pole. You can’t make this stuff up,” he said.