Man Gets Ridesharing Service To Drive Injured Baby Bird To Wildlife Rescue Center While On Night Out

Mar 12, 2020 by apost team

In the summer of 2019, a group of men in Utah found an injured baby bird. They wanted to help it, but they were intoxicated from a night of drinking.

So, instead of driving, one of them called for an uber to take him and the bird to the wildlife rescue center so that it could receive proper care.

The group of men had been out day drinking when they saw a small bird fall out of the sky. It turned out to be a goldfinch who was in distress. The group knew that the bird needed help, but they also knew that they were all unable to drive anywhere from being under the influence. 

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Tim Crowley was in the group who saved the baby bird, he and his friends decided that the only thing they could do would be to get a ride for the little animal.

"At first it was a joke like maybe we should just call an Uber, you know?" Crowley said to Fox 13 News Utah, "And then we were like, "No really, why not?""So that is exactly what they did. They ordered an Uber to take the injured goldfinch to the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Northern Utah. 

The Uber driver, Christy Guynn, at first thought the pals were joking when they told her who she would be taking in her car. She told Fox 13: "I got there and there’s three or four guys standing out in the yard and they’re holding beers,” Guynn's first thought was that they were going to all try to bring the beers into her vehicle, a definite no-no.

However, that wasn’t the case at all. They sent her to the wildlife sanctuary with the injured bird. Later on, the facility shared the amazing story on facebook, along with pictures of the rescued bird.

They wanted to say thank you to the men who called an Uber for the bird, as well as the driver who accepted the call. They said that while they always think they have seen it all, something comes along and proves them wrong. "Thank you to the rescuer who helped this little one get the care it needed in a timely manner,” the center wrote on facebook, “And thank you for keeping yourself safe and others on the road safe as well!”

The staff gave the bird a name, "Petey Uber." They believe he is only three weeks old, we hope he has a quick recovery!

Although the rescue center was glad the baby bird got to them in time to be rescued (and without anybody driving under the influence), a representative told apost.com that they "don't want to encourage this."

The rescue center revealed that since the story has gone viral, many others have started using ridesharing apps to get injured animals into their care, something they feel 'disengages' the rescuer with the patient, which leads to a lack of donations that are crucial for the rescue's operations. 

"We thought this was pretty fun/funny and so posted, but [it] turns out in hindsight that the bad side of this is we then ended up with 6 more Uber/Lyft patients over the next couple of months," the representative told apost in a statement. "[It ] seems like that would be a "Good thing", right? Well, when you are donation-based and the rescuer never comes in with the patient it is actually a bad thing.

"None of them were supported by their rescuers in the form of a donation for their care [or] treatment. We lose that important connection with the rescuer and the opportunity to get them engaged with their rescue and hopefully wanting to support their rescue with funding. So, yes, they got the animal the help they needed but they didn't add/support the costly rehabilitation process," they added.

Would you order an Uber if this happened to you? Leave us a comment below and then pass this article along to others.