In Duckling Rescue, No Job Too Small for Haddonfield P.D.

If he’s not careful, officer Stu Holloway is going to get a reputation. He breathed life back into an unresponsive infant in January, an act

Last Sunday, he came to the on a leafy street in Haddonfield. One of his commanding officers said he’d rescue a Beanie Baby if it were in trouble.

His daring deeds haven't yet elevated him to the level of, say, , Holloway's local heroics are starting to get him notice.

"We're here to do a job, and if we can come up with some ingenuity to rescue four ducks in a sewer grate or go in and save somebody's life, we're going to do what we can," said Holloway, a 12-year Haddonfield police officer.

Patrolman Robert Shreve partnered with Holloway for the duck rescue. In fact, it was Shreve who descended down a six-foot ladder stair into the sewer to retrieve the ducklings—no easy feat for the 6' 6", 300-lb, veteran.

"That's what makes this job," Shreve said. "You just never know what you're going to come across."

They arrived on the scene after a neighbor reported that a frantic mother duck had lost one of her ducklings to the grate. When the mother tried to rescue the first chick, the others following her fell through as well.

The pair decided that the situation was too urgent to wait for animal control.

Shreve, who learned duck calls from his grandfather, "made a couple calls and whistles, and here comes the little chick out waddling from one side to the other," Holloway said.

Neighbors helped by keeping the mother duck, who had several other chicks with her, away from the rescue. Once the chicks were pulled from the sewer, the rescuers gently guided them back to their waiting flock in the nearby brush.

Station Avenue resident Cindi Train provided a bucket for officers to hoist the chicks out of the sewer. The image that sticks with her is that of Shreve and Holloway gently cradling the ducklings until they could be reunited with their wayward mother.

"They are big guys, but they were sweet and tender with the ducklings," Train said of the officers.

"You could hear the mother calling and the chicks responding," Shreve said. "[In my head] I kept hearing the Peaches & Herb song "Reunited...and it feels so good..."