On September 27th, 2020 the Tewksbury Police Department in Massachusetts shared a funny video on Facebook of an officer attempting to help a skunk that had gotten its head stuck in a container.
TPD wrote on Facebook, “This weekend, Officer Eric Hanley came upon a skunk that had gotten its head stuck in a container. He was able to safely and quickly rescue the skunk from his predicament without injury.. or any unpleasant odors.”
In the video, you can see Officer Hanley approach the wild animal as it staggers around in a parking lot, ubale to see. To help the poor fella, he bends down to grab the container, but his grip slips. He decides to take a step back as a precautionary measure not to get sprayed.
A skunk’s spray is very strong and unpleasant to smell. It’s so strong, the human nose can actually detect it from 3.5 miles away. A skunk can spray its target from 10 feet away with a high degree of accuracy and can cause irritation and even temporary blindness.
With all that in mind, Officer Hanley makes a second attempt at taking the container off its head and this time, it’s a success. The moment he pulls the container off he takes off running in one direction and the skunk takes off in the other. The officers watching him cheered Officer Hanley for helping the critter out. Take a look at the video below!