Baby raccoons rescued from trash truck

Shelly Nichols, animal control officer with the city, captures one of two young raccoons who wound up in the back of a city sanitation vehicle on Monday, July 13, 2009. The two animals were inside a trash container when dumped into the truck. The sanitation crew halted work until Nichols arrived to rescue the raccoons. Nichols freed the animals in a nearby field.

An animal rescue prompted a slight delay in a Lawrence trash crew’s route Monday morning, after two young raccoons wound up inside the crew’s trash truck.

The raccoons were startled when the city crew went to empty the large trash bin they happened to be hiding in, at Peterson Acres, 2930 Peterson Road.

“This was certainly an unusual circumstance,” said Bob Yoos, the city’s solid waste division manager.

The nocturnal critters made a dash for safety while the bin was being dumped, but ended up in the truck, he said.

Animal Control Officer Shelly Nichols was called out to rescue the raccoons.

Climbing up onto her animal control truck, Nichols reached into the trash truck with a lasso tool and grabbed the two raccoons. The creatures resisted the rescue and made screeching sounds as they were pulled to safety and released into a nearby field.

“If we hadn’t have seen them, they probably would’ve been squashed or suffocated,” Yoos said. “The crew did see them, fortunately.”