Fire service defends duck rescue

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A fire service which sent three fire engines and a rescue boat to save a trapped duck has said it was not a waste of resources.

The bird had been trapped in a drainage tunnel for five days at Earlswood Lakes, near Solihull, West Midlands, during the recent floods.

One of the Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service crews was summoned from Rugby - 35 miles from the incident.

Firefighters managed to free the bird after its owner called 999.

'No other calls'

A spokeswoman denied the rescue was a waste of money and said there were no other calls to deal with at the time.

The spokeswoman said: "It's debatable whether a 999 call should have been made, but people do do it sometimes, and this is part of the service firefighters provide.

"This certainly wasn't a waste of resources. It's all a matter of prioritising which incidents to attend and it may have been that there were no other calls at the time."

She said that the firefighters would have left the duck if a more urgent call had come in.