Ducklings rescued from storm drain near Pringle Creek

A Salem Health employee and a Salem wastewater flow monitoring crew came to the rescue of six ducklings Monday morning.

Jodi Luckenbill, a patient access specialist for Salem Health, was taking a walk on her morning break when she spotted a "frantic" Mallard duck and a duckling circling a storm drain on Bellevue Street SE north of Pringle Creek.

"I'm like, 'What is she doing?' And sure enough, she was looking down the grate, so I look down there, and there's six little tiny ones down there, and she wanted them out," Luckenbill said.

She called her son-in-law, Michale Strawn, who works in wastewater flow monitoring. Strawn and his crew were finishing up at a site downtown and were able to get there in minutes.

Meantime, Luckenbill tried to keep the mother safe.

"She was freaking out, doing circles, and her and her one baby were starting to go into Bellevue where the oncoming traffic was going," Luckenbill said. "I stopped one car, I put my hand up like 'Stop!' and I shooed her back onto the sidewalk."

The scene attracted some attention.

"Some nurses were coming out from the hospital, and they saw what was going on; one of them was bawling," she said.

Strawn and his crew were able to pull up the grate and reunite the ducklings with their mother. Luckenbill said the ducks all ran to nearby Pringle Creek once they were out.

"I was elated, so happy," she said. "They were in the water within one minute — they were down and swimming."

Isabel Funk covers breaking news and public safety for the Statesman Journal. Funk can be reached at ifunk@salem.gannett.com or on X at @isabeldfunk

This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Ducklings rescued from storm drain near Pringle Creek