Strangers help rescue raccoon stuck in tree above Kinnickinnic River

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    MILWAUKEE (WISN) — When Patrick Housefeld noticed a raccoon dangling from a tree branch above the Kinnickinnic River for three days, he knew he had to do something.

“Everybody just said, ‘It’s sad, let’s just let nature take its course,'” Housefeld said.

Housefeld lives near 13th and Harrison Avenue, just across the way from the raccoon he named Ricky.

Ricky hung helplessly last Friday.

Housefeld tried contacting the Wisconsin Humane Society, but they couldn’t help.

“We depend on the public to bring injured wild animals to our wildlife rehabilitation center, as we don’t have staffing resources for significant in-field rescue work,” a Wisconsin Humane Society spokesperson said in an email to 12 News.

Taking matters into his own hands, he took photos and videos of Ricky, which his friend, Allison, shared on Facebook.

After seeing the Facebook post, two strangers from Wauwatosa showed up to help rescue the raccoon.

“We just went out and did it,” Honni Al-Juma, who helped rescue the raccoon. Al-Juma and his co-worker AJ Kisley were spending their Monday like any other weekday, working for their car detailing company Sauced Detailing.

When they saw the Facebook, they said they knew they had to jump in and help.

“I called AJ, I was like, ‘Hey man, wake up because he was sleeping; I said get up. We are going to rescue a raccoon,” Al-Juma said.

The two are avid fishermen, so they took their fishing net to help rescue Ricky.

“This net has caught plenty of salmon, and now it has caught one raccoon,” Al Juma said.

When they arrived on scene, they safely rescued Ricky from the branch and set the raccoon back into the wild.

“We kind of watched him enough to make sure he wasn’t injured,” Kisley said.

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