The Grande Prairie Public Library had a weekend to remember as the escape of its pet lizard prompted a call for an extra few set of hands.
On Saturday September 6th, Skink Floyd, the beloved Schneider’s skink that calls the library home. Was out on a routine stroll until he got away from members and climbed into a hole behind a cupboard in the staff room. Staff than tried everything to get their pet out, using every tool imaginable in the building, but still, no luck.
One of the staff members helping, is an on-call firefighter, who then called her platoon chief and asked if they were busy. Fortunately they were not. After roughly ten minutes, six fire team members showed up with a few Search and Rescue members ready to save the day.
Bailey Randolph who is the head of Children and Teen Services at the library, was not sure if this was up the fire department’s alley.
“We knew the fire department will get cats and dogs out of trees and stuff, but we weren’t sure if they would handle a lizard”
The firefighters used many of their tools to try and get the animal out, with one of those items being an infrared scanner… only to realize that Schneider’s skink’s are cold-blooded animals and would not show up on the scanner.
After many tears and a dreadful three and a half hours, Search and Rescue and the fire department, were able to lift the cupboards and get Skink Floyd free.
Randolph, mentioned how the room felt after their lizard was finally free.
“once we realized she was alive everyone was having a great time”
Skink Floyd is now back in her enclosure, and is not expected to be let out for the next little while as she has been placed on house arrest by library staff.
