'Is He Giving It CPR?': Body Camera Captures Driver Helping Squirrel
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Body cameras from a Twin Cities police department captured officers giving high-fives to a young driver after he appeared to successfully give CPR to a stunned squirrel.
The video was posted Thursday afternoon to the Brooklyn Park Police Department Facebook page. In an hour of posting, it had already amassed thousands of views and hundreds of shares.
Police say the officers were on routine patrol on Sept. 25 when they saw a young man bent down near the curb on the 6500 block of Hampshire Avenue. They stopped and got out of their squad car.
As they approached, the officers saw the young man, identified in the video as "good Samaritan," touching a belly-up squirrel with a gloved hand, pressing a finger on its chest.
"Is he giving it CPR?" one of the officers says before answering his own question. "I think it is."
The young man told the officers that he was helping the squirrel because he believed he hit it with his car, despite attempting to swerve out of the way.
However, the animal didn't appear to be run over the car's tire.
After a moment, one of the officers advises the young man to flip the squirrel over. Not long after, the critter begins to stir.
"There he goes!" the officer shouts, as the squirrel darts away from the street.
Immediately after, the young man begins to celebrate, high-fiving both officers.
"We'll put you in for a life saving award," one of the officers says.
At the end of the Facebook video, police added music from Gloria Gaynor's 1978 hit "I Will Survive."
The video also advises the public to bring wounded wildlife to the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center.