We see a lot of strange things stuck in pipes and occasionally come across animals inside of structures during maintenance and inspection visits.  As you would imagine, it’s always a little un-nerving looking into a structure and seeing a set of eyes peering back at you.  Especially when they big googly plastic eyes that are attached to a furry little red body!

During a recent stormwater maintenance project we were surprised by “Low Flow Elmo” looking back up at us.  Poor little guy.  He had gotten wedged inside of the low flow orifice just before the riser opening.  Fortunately, our crews had the necessary equipment on hand to perform an emergency rescue.  All that CPR training finally came in handy.  It’s not everyday we get to be a hero in the stormwater world!  The extraction of Elmo from the low-flow pipe was a success.

I doubt you will see this story covered on Sesame Street any time soon, but hopefully Elmo learned his lesson that stormwater management ponds are not good places for swimming.