Man Leaving For Work Hears Crying From Car's Wheel And Finds A Pregnant Mama

Steffany Johnson-Jernigan was getting her kids ready for the day when her husband came to her with a problem. He’d been leaving for work when he heard something crying under her car and was worried it was an injured animal. Johnson-Jernigan finished helping her sons, then went to check it out. Johns

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Steffany Johnson-Jernigan was getting her kids ready for the day when her husband came to her with a problem. He’d been leaving for work when he heard something crying under her car and was worried it was an injured animal. Johnson-Jernigan finished helping

her sons, then went to check it out.

Johnson-Jernigan followed the sound to the spring behind her passenger side tire — and found a squirrel, hopelessly trapped and in need of help.

“She was so scared, and every time I touched her, she would move farther and farther up, which in turn made it harder for me to try to get her,” Johnson-Jernigan told The Dodo. “I have no idea how long she was up there — I’m assuming a cat chased her up there, 'cause we do have some mischievous ones on our street.”

Johnson-Jernigan has worked in rescues, shelters and boarding facilities for the past 15 years. One thing her friends and family know about her is that she’ll never leave behind an animal who needs her help.

For the next 45 minutes, Johnson-Jernigan did everything she could think to do to try and free the squirrel. While she was working on it, she discovered something: The squirrel was actually a pregnant mama.

“I knew I had to get her out no matter what then,” Johnson-Jernigan said. “I wasn’t just saving one.”

Eventually, Johnson-Jernigan realized there was no way she could get the squirrel out on her own, so she went and got some tools and cut a piece out of her wheel well. Once there was more space, she was able to successfully pull the mama squirrel free.

She wasn’t able to hold the squirrel for long, but after a very quick once-over, it seemed that the mama squirrel was mostly OK.

“I walked away with three small scratches and (from what I could tell) she only had a couple spots of missing fur and a couple scabs,” Johnson-Jernigan said.

Johnson-Jernigan has since seen the mama squirrel running around her yard and hanging out in a nearby tree. She’s planning on building her a little shelf for the tree and is hoping that sometime soon, the mama squirrel will have some babies to raise.