Rambo the ram, by all accounts a curious animal, picked the wrong pipe to investigate. On Sunday, a crew from Somerton Fire Station was called to Keinton Mandeville, a small village in Somerset, England, after the roughly 100-kilogram ram became "firmly wedged" inside a length of concrete pipe and could not wriggle himself back out.
Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service said the job required its crew to improvise. According to the service's account of the rescue, firefighters fed chimney rods through the pipe to secure a line around Rambo, then carefully positioned a hearth sheet beneath him before pulling him free — sliding him out along the sheet rather than trying to pull him by force, which could have injured the animal.
The station described the call as one of the more unusual jobs on its books, requiring the crew to "think outside the box" to free an animal that, by nature, does not appreciate being handled by strangers, let alone hauled out of a pipe. Coverage of the incident noted the rescue also happened to be Somerton Fire Station's 200th call of the year, a milestone made slightly more memorable by its four-legged subject.
Rambo emerged from the ordeal, in the fire service's words, unharmed and unbothered, and was swiftly reunited with his flock of nine ewes on the farm. Video of the rescue, showing the ram sliding out of the pipe onto grass before trotting off, circulated widely on social media this week, part of a small but steady genre of British livestock-in-peril stories that regularly go viral for their combination of rural absurdity and small-town heroics.
No injuries were reported to Rambo, his owner or the crew. Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service did not say what drew the ram into the pipe in the first place, though rural fire crews across the UK field similar animal-rescue calls — involving everything from cows in ditches to dogs down badger setts — on a near-weekly basis.
