“Mission accomplished.”
Irish veterinary surgeon Noel Fitzpatrick, who hosts The Supervet on Channel 4, came to the rescue of a swan in distress on a traffic-filled, rain-soaked road yesterday.
The vet was on the way to RTÉ to do an interview with Ray D’Arcy on RTÉ Radio One on Thursday when he spotted the confused swan on the main Donnybrook road.
He explained that the confused bird had landed in the middle of the road, with trucks and motorbikes swerving around it – so he knew he had to act quick.
He got out of his car and chased the swan down, wrapping it up in his jacket and delivering him back to the nearby canal.
“My wrist is killing me, [the swan] was huge,” he told Ray, joking about how he felt like Vetman, the superhero in his new book, as he saved his new feathered friend.
On route to the next interview in Dublin this afternoon and we came across this poor confused fella who was stuck in the middle of the main road. Having experienced many Swan rescues down the years I knew I could help… mission accomplished…now happy and safe at home x pic.twitter.com/wXoOIk8JKP
— Noel Fitzpatrick (@ProfNoelFitz) November 6, 2018
He explained:
“We were rushing from Grafton Street down here and across the canal and a swan just mistook the road for the canal because it’s blizzarding rain down there.
“It just landed on the road right in front of a taxi cab and trucks were coming and bikes were swerving and I said ‘pull the car over!’
“Fortunately I had lovely tweed jacket that I had just done a television interview in and that was perfect for getting a swan safely under it and ran him back to the canal and released him.”
Noel shared footage of the rescue on Twitter, where he said that the swan was “now happy and safe at home.”
He captioned the video:
“On route to the next interview in Dublin this afternoon and we came across this poor confused fella who was stuck in the middle of the main road.
“Having experienced many Swan rescues down the years I knew I could help… mission accomplished…now happy and safe at home x”
