Macaw owner Joey Oser got emotional when reunited with his macaw "Gigi" this weekend. It took the Colerain Township Fire Department's ladder to reach the bird, who had become stranded about 60 feet up in a tree.
As the ordeal unfolded on social media, we learned Gigi is a fixture on the West Side. Oser takes her almost everywhere he goes, and told firefighters he fed her with a dropper when she was first hatched. That was more than 20 years ago. So you can imagine the anxiety he felt when she suddenly started flitting from tree to tree and Oser couldn't get the macaw down for 24 hours.
That's when Colerain Township firefighters came into the picture. They were able to coax Gigi to come down.
Battalion Chief Steve Conn was on that run. "We were able to squeeze our truck in between two buildings and around some wires" on Harrison near an upholstery shop.
Conn described what happened next. "My firefighter Alex went back out and just held his arm up to try to let Gigi walk out onto his arm. He was playing around trying to get on the arm and started to walk away and Alex decided it was time to encourage him a little more and was able to get ahold of him by his feet and help him back out."
Happy to help out our new friend Joe when his 28y/o Macaw, Gigi, climbed into a tree and couldn’t get down for 24 hours. She was a little scared so she dug in for comfort. #ouch. pic.twitter.com/d0ximnIIos
— Colerain Fire (@Colerain_Fire) June 23, 2019
Turns out Gigi is so famous she hasher own Facebook page and West Siders see her perched on Oser's car frequently.
