The Scare of our Lives
Posted: Fri May 19, 2006 4:15 am
So, it's Eugene's birthday today. He picked the perfect day to freak the heck out of us and continue his special ways. 
I'm laying in the grass with Eugene and singing to him and telling him how special he is. I'm holding one of the big Northerns, and watching Eug slowly walk around. Suddenly, we see his tail somewhat point upward, and Holly and I run over to see what he's getting into. HE'S CLIMBED DOWN INTO THE UNDERGROUND GUTTER PIPE. We've known they are there, but the gutters go INTO the pipes so the pipes are virtually cut off and blocked. He somehow squeezed his way in anyway and Holly lost it. She paniced and started screaming and crying and yelling what are we gonna do....I also paniced and ripped off the entire 2-story gutter off its hinges and stick my whole arm down the hole barely grabbing the end of Eugene's tail. At this point, there's no way in hell I'm letting go because I don't know where these pipes go or lead except to the sewer. Eugene is grabbing onto something, but what, because he's not moving -- I begin pulling as it's the only thing I can do -- the end of his tail breaks off. I begin cursing and yelling and bring up the end of his servered tail -- Holly begins losing it all over again.
Eugene is somewhere completely underground walking through the piping that lead to the sewars. We have no idea where they fork off as these are all underground and feed off each apartment complex building. At this point, I'm in a state of shock. I thought I had lost him forever. I call 911, the fire department and the police. EACH tell me that they do not rescue animals in distress, but only will come to your aide if your life is being threatened by an animal. I don't know if all the TV shows showing firemen helping cats in trees is fake, or what?
I know they helped Zenny and Pup when he was trapped in the chair. I called VETS, animal regulation -- everything is closed; it's 7 PM.
I now basically think to myself we have to do something immediately (the phone calls didn't last long), or Eugene is gone. We don't have a shovel, or any type of serious digging tools, so we quickly ask passing neighbors door to door and call the complex groundspeople. They bring us shovels and hammers. I called friends to come help as well. We began digging at a half way point between Eugene's entry hole, and the adjacent building's drain. We thought they were connected, but we found nothing. We then begin digging at the entry point Eugene went in, and discover that the underground piping elbows and goes directly in front of our patio connecting to the drain on the other side. We dig a deep channel on both sides exposing the entire pipe and break into it with hammers. No Eugene. We don't know how far he has gone as these pipes go almost around our entire building. We then dig up the entire pipe a whole 15 foot strip and begin breaking into it at different sections. This PVC is HEAVEY DUTY and was incredibly hard to break. We could only make little holes at a time. We make three holes; no Eugene. Long before this time, I had set up barricades in the other gutter openings in hopes that if Eugene got to those points, he couldn't pass. We set up two people as lookouts at those holes to watch the entire time in case he ran that way due to the constant pounding on the pipes.
Utter dread is setting in now, and I've almost accepted that he's gone. We have holes throughout the piping now, and only a small space left -- my friend is pounding away with the hammer and crashes through it and yells: "I SEE LIZARD, I JUST SAW THE LIZARD". I see his stub tail disappear in the watery muck, and I bash a bigger hole in the opposite end to put in another barricade. We now have him quarantined (we think) and get a hose to stick into the small openings to push him over to my side -- he's not budging. I've got my whole arm in this sludge at this point bending down and trying to just get a glimpse of him. I can't see him, but I hear him sneezing. I'm afraid that the pipes might branch off at the middle, so we break another hole into the pipe -- he moves up again, but this time, just enough that I can reach in and grab his head. I slowly pull him out, and he is safe. I'm literally in a state of disbelief, because I had just about accepted that he was gone forever. When I called maintenance, that's what they told me -- but I said I'll dig up the pipe and break it open if I have to. Once we got him out, I just collapsed in utter exhaustion holding him. I had feelings of irresponsibility, embarrassment, gratitude, exhaustion, and absolute terror all inside me at the same time. Maintenance is coming over tomorrow to attempt to patch the holes and fix the gutters (I tore two 30 ft vertical gutters down). Coincidentally, the head man owns bearded dragons and sympathized with me. I only talked with him on the phone about it; he wasn't on the grounds when this all happened. I was happy about that, because anyone else would laugh at the notion of a lizard getting stuck in underground sewage pipes.
I took some pictures of the whole ordeal. The trench is about a foot deep in the ground. Eugene only lost the very tip of his tail, and I expect that it will grow back nicely.
Below is where he crawled in. You can see the hole clearly since I tore out the gutter, but normally, this hole is completely plugged by the gutter. We're going to have to take steps to seriously 100% seal this somehow. To the left is the elbow pipe dug up that we broke into.
When I got him out, I was really, really overwhelmed. You can see the missing tip of the tail...
Very emotional and still scared, but incredible relief
He was filthy, and his fresh wound was subjected to all that muck -- I'm optimistic that's he'll be just fine though.
This is from his actual tail below (not the broken off piece). It's looks almost hollow!
So, that's my evening. We worked into the night, and I just feel incredibly fortunate. If it had been Sunny, we joked about how he would have been half way to England before we even put the shovel into the ground. Our roommate and her friend gave up their study time to help us through the whole thing.
I'm still a little shaken up, but am in high spirits because he's safe now.
Oh, and look at this. Those pipes were TOUGH.
I'm laying in the grass with Eugene and singing to him and telling him how special he is. I'm holding one of the big Northerns, and watching Eug slowly walk around. Suddenly, we see his tail somewhat point upward, and Holly and I run over to see what he's getting into. HE'S CLIMBED DOWN INTO THE UNDERGROUND GUTTER PIPE. We've known they are there, but the gutters go INTO the pipes so the pipes are virtually cut off and blocked. He somehow squeezed his way in anyway and Holly lost it. She paniced and started screaming and crying and yelling what are we gonna do....I also paniced and ripped off the entire 2-story gutter off its hinges and stick my whole arm down the hole barely grabbing the end of Eugene's tail. At this point, there's no way in hell I'm letting go because I don't know where these pipes go or lead except to the sewer. Eugene is grabbing onto something, but what, because he's not moving -- I begin pulling as it's the only thing I can do -- the end of his tail breaks off. I begin cursing and yelling and bring up the end of his servered tail -- Holly begins losing it all over again.
Eugene is somewhere completely underground walking through the piping that lead to the sewars. We have no idea where they fork off as these are all underground and feed off each apartment complex building. At this point, I'm in a state of shock. I thought I had lost him forever. I call 911, the fire department and the police. EACH tell me that they do not rescue animals in distress, but only will come to your aide if your life is being threatened by an animal. I don't know if all the TV shows showing firemen helping cats in trees is fake, or what?
I know they helped Zenny and Pup when he was trapped in the chair. I called VETS, animal regulation -- everything is closed; it's 7 PM.
I now basically think to myself we have to do something immediately (the phone calls didn't last long), or Eugene is gone. We don't have a shovel, or any type of serious digging tools, so we quickly ask passing neighbors door to door and call the complex groundspeople. They bring us shovels and hammers. I called friends to come help as well. We began digging at a half way point between Eugene's entry hole, and the adjacent building's drain. We thought they were connected, but we found nothing. We then begin digging at the entry point Eugene went in, and discover that the underground piping elbows and goes directly in front of our patio connecting to the drain on the other side. We dig a deep channel on both sides exposing the entire pipe and break into it with hammers. No Eugene. We don't know how far he has gone as these pipes go almost around our entire building. We then dig up the entire pipe a whole 15 foot strip and begin breaking into it at different sections. This PVC is HEAVEY DUTY and was incredibly hard to break. We could only make little holes at a time. We make three holes; no Eugene. Long before this time, I had set up barricades in the other gutter openings in hopes that if Eugene got to those points, he couldn't pass. We set up two people as lookouts at those holes to watch the entire time in case he ran that way due to the constant pounding on the pipes.
Utter dread is setting in now, and I've almost accepted that he's gone. We have holes throughout the piping now, and only a small space left -- my friend is pounding away with the hammer and crashes through it and yells: "I SEE LIZARD, I JUST SAW THE LIZARD". I see his stub tail disappear in the watery muck, and I bash a bigger hole in the opposite end to put in another barricade. We now have him quarantined (we think) and get a hose to stick into the small openings to push him over to my side -- he's not budging. I've got my whole arm in this sludge at this point bending down and trying to just get a glimpse of him. I can't see him, but I hear him sneezing. I'm afraid that the pipes might branch off at the middle, so we break another hole into the pipe -- he moves up again, but this time, just enough that I can reach in and grab his head. I slowly pull him out, and he is safe. I'm literally in a state of disbelief, because I had just about accepted that he was gone forever. When I called maintenance, that's what they told me -- but I said I'll dig up the pipe and break it open if I have to. Once we got him out, I just collapsed in utter exhaustion holding him. I had feelings of irresponsibility, embarrassment, gratitude, exhaustion, and absolute terror all inside me at the same time. Maintenance is coming over tomorrow to attempt to patch the holes and fix the gutters (I tore two 30 ft vertical gutters down). Coincidentally, the head man owns bearded dragons and sympathized with me. I only talked with him on the phone about it; he wasn't on the grounds when this all happened. I was happy about that, because anyone else would laugh at the notion of a lizard getting stuck in underground sewage pipes.
I took some pictures of the whole ordeal. The trench is about a foot deep in the ground. Eugene only lost the very tip of his tail, and I expect that it will grow back nicely.
Below is where he crawled in. You can see the hole clearly since I tore out the gutter, but normally, this hole is completely plugged by the gutter. We're going to have to take steps to seriously 100% seal this somehow. To the left is the elbow pipe dug up that we broke into.
When I got him out, I was really, really overwhelmed. You can see the missing tip of the tail...
Very emotional and still scared, but incredible relief
He was filthy, and his fresh wound was subjected to all that muck -- I'm optimistic that's he'll be just fine though.
This is from his actual tail below (not the broken off piece). It's looks almost hollow!
So, that's my evening. We worked into the night, and I just feel incredibly fortunate. If it had been Sunny, we joked about how he would have been half way to England before we even put the shovel into the ground. Our roommate and her friend gave up their study time to help us through the whole thing.
I'm still a little shaken up, but am in high spirits because he's safe now.
Oh, and look at this. Those pipes were TOUGH.
What a night! I'm glad you ended up being able to get to Eugene!! He finally stops staring at the sky and ends up in trouble. Silly little skink. I'm really glad he's okay.
And I mean snout in the corner, not a sunshine romp...
:hug: poor Eugene, he must've been so scared. 
