PA Turnpike Crew Helps Rescue Injured Bald Eagle
They are all Eagles fans at the Trevose Maintenance Facility, and it’s not just the football team they root for.
A pair of bald eagles built a large nest about a mile from the shed near mile marker 352.2, and on Sunday, the Trevose crew got a call they weren’t expecting – one of the eagles had been hit by a car.
Equipment Operators Andrew Rusch, Anthony Franchini and Todd Pliego rushed in to help.
When they got the scene, they saw the bald eagle – the female of the pair – flying low and unsteady, landing on the nearby hillside.
So Rusch and Franchini made their way toward the eagle while calling in Game Warden James Crown to help.
They gently placed a blanket on the large eagle to calm her down while Pliego retrieved a container to put her in to keep her safe. During the rescue, the male eagle watched them from the nest.
You can watch the rescue in this video, shot by the crew at the scene:
Trevose crew helps rescue injured bald eagle
The three were proud to be part of this rescue because the bald eagle is not only a symbol of our nation, and it’s not only the mascot of Philadelphia’s playoff-bound football team, but they know these particular eagles. They’ve been nesting nearby for the last five or six years and are among the thriving and growing population of bald eagles around the Delaware River.
“It was awesome,” Rusch said about being able to help. “We hope she’s able to come back and be released and reunited with her mate.”
Rescuing wildlife in Trevose is not unusually, but it’s usually a deer that gets trapped in a fence, and one time, they freed a fox from a trap. But a bald eagle, and one they’ve seen living in their area for the past five or six years, was something new and a bit of an extra motivator.
Their foreman, Ryan Conaway, is proud of their work.
“They jumped into action,” Conaway said. “Hopefully, there will be a positive outcome.”
The bald eagle is now at a bird-rescue sanctuary in Delaware that Rusch had called.
By Steve Marroni, PA Turnpike Commission, Communications Specialist