News alert: This is a story with a happy ending.
They didn’t go hog-wild. But there was definitely cheering and a few hugs when Atlanta firefighters pulled a pet pig to safety Friday afternoon.
The pig, Rick “Bacon” Ross, had been raised by Latoria Middleton since he was just a week-old piglet. But on Wednesday, the 2-year-old porker wandered away from home.
Fortunately, his sibling, Middleton’s dog, was able to track Bacon’s scent to a manhole on Westview Drive in southwest Atlanta. Middleton got into the hole, too, thinking she could rescue the pig on her own.
When firefighters arrived Friday, both Middleton and the pig were hollering for help, but Middleton was able to crawl out on her own, said Sgt. Cortez Stafford, with the fire department.
Then, firefighters treated the pig just like anyone else stuck in a manhole, Stafford said, and they went to work to put a harness on him.
“Once we started the process, it only took maybe 10 minutes to get him out,” Stafford said. “He was fine. went right up to his owner. He was just happy, as good as could be.”
Firefighters get called to a variety of rescues, but this was far from a small animal stuck in a tree, Stafford said.
“That was the first pig rescue for probably everybody on scene, Stafford said. “But it has a happy ending.”
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