Firefighters are used to saving lives. Typically, it's people they're helping. But that wasn't the case in Wisconsin this morning.
A mother's cries for help didn't go unanswered. Carol Houston heard a mother duck's call early Thursday morning as she was getting ready to leave for work.
"I saw the mother duck walking around the sewer and walking around in circles and I knew something was wrong," Carol said.
What was wrong? Her 11 ducklings had fallen down the sewer drain. And while she was calling for her little ones to come out, Houston was calling in to the Wauwatosa Police Department for help.
Houston says a crew from the Wauwatosa Fire Department arrived on the scene within minutes of her calling. The team lifted the grate of the sewer drain and went in to helping the ducklings.
But all were not out. While mom soared high above, firefighters grab a board and net, trying to coax the two remaining babies to come closer.
Firefighters say they had to give up once they lost sight of the ducklings. Then finally, after more than an hour of hard work, mom was reunited with her nine babies. And now back on safer and drier ground, this group waddled back into the field as a family.
(Copyright 2009 by CNN. All Rights Reserved.)
