VIDEO: Cedar Rapids workers rescue baby ducks

Twelve tiny ducklings were rescued from a storm drain Friday afternoon in downtown Cedar Rapids.

The ducklings were following their mother across First Street SE around 1 p.m. when the mother went across a drain near First Avenue. Tiffany Recker, 29, a paralegal who was taking a walk on her lunch break, saw the 12 young ducklings fall, one by one, into the drain.

“It was almost like a cartoon,” Recker said.

When the mother duck turned around and could not find her ducklings, she paced back and forth, Recker said. They were chirping, about six feet below street level.

“She got to quacking at me, like, ‘Help me!'” Recker said.

Recker called the police and two officers soon arrived. The ducklings waddled through an underground pipe to a manhole a few feet away, where they huddled and chirped. By then, the mother duck was not in the immediate area.

Animal Control officers arrived and scooped them into a net. All 12 were brought to safety in just a few minutes.

“It's a clean sweep,” said one of the rescuers. “Nothing but duck!”

Animal Control Officer Rod Irons said the ducks would go to Robins Lake where they would likely be adopted quickly. He said ducklings fall into storm drains two or three times a week in spring and summer.

“A lot of them are downtown, which is the worst place to be, because of cars and all of the drains that are down here,” Irons said. “They seem to find them. The momma duck has no idea what a drain is, so she'll walk right over it.”

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Check out video from the rescue below.