If you live in an area where gray squirrels are rather common, you probably don’t give them much thought as they are scurrying by or running through the trees. You might even consider them to be somewhat of a nuisance, although if you take a moment to stop and watch them, it can be a lot of fun. Every once in awhile, you may even get up close and personal with a squirrel at a local park, but nobody could’ve expected what this squirrel would do.
It happened would a woman named Tia Powell was walking through a park near her home in Virginia. She saw a squirrel, which wasn’t out of the ordinary but it was just sitting along the trail and watching her walk by. She didn’t think much of it but the squirrel was about to get persistent. “She ran up to me and grabbed my sweatpants,” Powell told The Dodo. “I was shocked and speechless.”
At first, Powell was alarmed because the squirrel was acting so strangely and she tried to shoo her away. The animal just insisted on getting her attention, so she stopped for a moment.
“She came right back,” Powell said. “Something told me to see what would happen, so I stopped and watched her.”
Now that she had Powell’s attention, the squirrel started to move and lead the woman to a spot where there was another squirrel waiting.
“She had a baby squirrel with her,” Powell said. “The baby squirrel had a hurt leg.”
Powell wasn’t sure what to do so she decided to pick up the little squirrel and move her to a safer spot.
“The mom seemed to be happy when I started to help,” Powell said. “So, after I thought my deed was done, I went on about my day.”
When she turned around, she saw that both of the squirrels were now following her.
It was then that she realized that they needed more help. That is when she saw that there was a black cat nearby, posing a threat to the injured baby squirrel.
“I chased the cat away,” Powell said.
Powell thinks that the squirrel only had an injured leg but it did slow him down to the point where he was in danger. She reached out to a wildlife specialist and police for help.
They decided that they would move the squirrels to higher ground.
“We were able to get the baby and mother to a different area [of the park] with more trees. They were able to climb all the way up,” Powell said. “They looked very happy.”
You can see the video of what it happen:
Now that they were in a safe spot, all seemed right in the world.
Powell came back a few days later to bring her own children.
“My youngest son said, ‘Look, there’s a squirrel.’ I turned my head and there were two squirrels at the edge of a branch staring directly at me,” Powell said. “I smiled back. I believe that was the same two squirrels.”
It seems as if they remembered her kindness, and she remembers what happened as well.
“It’s still kind of surreal and neat at the same time. I am glad that I had that experience,” she said. “It was an experience that will always be remembered.”
Source: The DoDo