NYC subway becomes ambulance for sick swan, saved by kindness of strangers
An injured swan on the brink of death a was saved by a quick-thinking New Yorker who used the New York City subway as a makeshift bird ambulance.
Ariel Cordova-Rojas, 30, was riding her bike through Jamaica Bay wildlife refuge around 4 p.m. Thursday when she noticed the injured bird sitting alone in the grass.
“She didn’t move at all,” said Cordova-Rojas, who used to work at the Wild Bird Fund. “I approached, and she stayed still. Swans are normally very aggressive and very territorial, so I knew something was wrong.”
The bird lover scooped up the swan, who was unable to walk or fly, put her coat over her and walked the fowl and her bike a mile to the park’s entrance.
“I had no idea what I was going to do,” said Cordova-Rojas. “The ranger station was closed. Brooklyn Animal Care Center was too busy.”
Cordova-Rojas said she was ultimately helped by a group of onlookers who wondered what she was doing with the majestic fowl.
When she told them their story, the good Samaritans gave her and the swan a ride to the Howard Beach station on the A line, while another man who turned out to be a Metropolitan Transportation Authority worker drove her bicycle to the station.
She rode the subway up to Nostrand Ave. in Brooklyn, where a pair of employees at the Wild Bird Fund drove her and the swan to the nonprofit’s clinic on the Upper West Side.
The swan turned out to have lead toxicity, and is in stable condition at the clinic.
“She has some lead in her system, which is actually pretty common for the water fowl in New York City," said Corodova-Rojas. “Swans while grazing in water sometimes pick up lead anchors, little by little it leeches into their body.”
The heroic rescue came on the eve of Cordova-Rojas' 30th birthday.
“It was a great way to close out my 20s,” she said.
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