Samaritan Lured Onto Roof By Juvenile Raccoons!

Would-be Samaritan couldn't get off roof
By: J.D. Prose, Times Staff
07/24/2007

BEAVER FALLS - A would-be Good Samaritan found himself in need of some help getting down from a roof Tuesday night in Beaver Falls .

Hee hee- Beaver!

Terry Elko, 44, used an old 40-foot ladder and some youthful leaping ability to get on the roof at 1219 Fifth Ave. to try and help two baby raccoons that have been stranded in the home's chimney for two weeks.

Some guy old enough to know better got lured onto a roof by two raccoon squatters.

"They're suffering," said Elko, who lives across the street from the home owned by Central United Methodist Church on Sixth Avenue .

Methodist = tough love

Elko said animal control officials told him to call the city's fire department, which told him it doesn't handle animal calls. "Nobody's doing anything," he said.

Typical hippie bureaucrats didn't want to do anything.

After watching the raccoons scurrying around the roof for two weeks, Elko decided Tuesday to try and get them down on his own. He used the ladder, but he said it was a few feet short of reaching the roof.

After being brainwashed for two weeks, he used superhuman strength to get on roof.

When he tried to get down using the old ladder it didn't look as sturdy as it did when he went up it. "That ladder's messed up," Elko said.

Doh! Ladder didn't seem so bad when hypnotized by raccoons.

Enter Beaver Falls firefighters, who used a longer ladder to get Elko down around 8 p.m. ; he was stuck on the roof for about 20 minutes. "It doesn't look that far down?" said Elko, who estimated the roof was 50-feet high. "Climb up there and stand there for a second."

Trying to justify being duped by rodents...

As for the raccoons, they're still holed up in the chimney, and Elko hopes someone else will rescue them.

More like they lost interest in him when he didn't bring a live chicken or other snacks.

"I didn't want to go up there in the first place," he said.

But I was strangely compelled to...