Police sergeant James Givens is a Cincinnati PD veteran with over 26 years of service on the force, but he has never seen a distress call quite like this one.Givens was just sitting in his police vehicle at a local parking spot when an animal grabbed his attention by tapping on the window.
He did a double-take when he realized it was a goose.The goose stared at Givens intently with a sense of urgency in her eyes. It seemed to want to get the officer’s attention.“It kept pecking and pecking and normally they don’t come near us,” Givens told WKRC.Givens could sense this was a special situation – and since he wasn’t on call, when the frustrated goose walked away then stopped to look back at him, as if urging him to follow, Givens didn’t think twice.
He immediately hopped out of his cruiser and started following the goose toward to water banks.
He recalled the incident, saying:
“It walked away and then it stopped and looked back, so I followed it.”
Upon following the goose, Givens spotted something that made their previous interaction make sense.
“It led me right over to [a gosling] that was tangled up in all that string.”
When she had looked back at Given, she really was urging him to follow her. It wasn’t all in his mind.
The baby gosling had gotten trapped in some string that was attached to an abandoned balloon.
The gosling was able to move his little feet and wings but not enough to get himself free.
Givens wanted to help the gosling but was also a bit worried the goose might attack him if he got too close. They are known to be protective and territorial after all. He decided to call the SPCA Animal Rescue for help.
Unfortunately, staff at the ASPCA were overloaded with tasks and weren’t able to attend the scene and assist in the rescue.
Givens then decided to get in touch with his colleague Cecilia Charon, who agreed to assist in the gosling’s rescue.
While she doesn’t usually assist in rescues like these, she decided to lend her skills to the situation given the SPCA had already said they were busy.
Once Cecilia arrived, Sergeant Givens grabbed his camera and recorded the rescue.
Afterward, Givens shared the video of the gosling being freed online, where the clip (and his story about the mama goose) quickly went viral.
To date, the video has garnered over 7 million views.
Viewers love the way Givens took the time out of his day to assist a mama goose that clearly needed his help.
Comments on the video read:
“Very proud of this officer. To protect and serve… not just people.”
“That’s a good mama bird. And that’s a good cop.”
“Officers… Thank you so very much! You potentially saved the life of that gosling, helped a mother that came to you, and you made our day a little brighter as well. Job well done!”
