For the workers, it was just a routine job. But it nearly cost a little animal his life.
Caleb Evans lives in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, in a building that’s undergoing some renovations. Earlier this month, a crew had been hard at work repainting the exterior — though not without some mishaps. Surrounding vegetation was hit with overspray, turning it white.
But that wasn’t all.
While looking over the crew’s work, Evans happened upon a gecko who evidently had been hit with blasts from their paint sprayer days earlier. The little reptile was covered from head to tail.
Picking up the gecko, Evans wasn’t even sure if he was still alive — but he decided to help regardless.
"I said, 'Alright, I'm right here. I'm going to save him,'" Evans told The Dodo. "If
I don't save him, nobody else is going to do it. He's going to die, most likely."
Here's footage of Evans following through on that promise:
In the end, after some gentle scrubbing with soap and his fingers, Evans was able to remove nearly all the paint encasing the gecko’s body.
Evans then released him back outside, going to extra effort to ensure the little lizard didn’t find himself in the vicinity of the painting crew again.
It would have been all too easy for Evans to have assumed it was too late to rescue the paint-covered gecko outside his home — but instead, thanks to Evans’ patience, the gecko got a second chance back in the wild.
"I just knew if I didn't help him, he would've never had a chance," Evans said.
