A raccoon got its head stuck in a sewer grate. Freeing it was ‘quite the operation.’

The call for help came in shortly after 10 a.m. on Thursday, prompting a team of firefighters to suit up and rush to a residential area in Newton, Mass.

“We sent our rescue company,” Capt. Eric Fricke of the Newton Fire Department told The Washington Post. “They have the tools and expertise for freeing people from things.”

Only this time, the firefighters weren’t going to save a trapped person. The caller, a bicyclist commuting to work, had spotted a distressed young raccoon stuck in an unfortunate position: It was firmly wedged in a sewer grate, its head poking out from one of the small square holes.

But what rescuers thought would be quickly solved with liberal applications of soap and water, a method Fricke said works “99 percent of the time,” turned into a nearly two-hour-long saga that at one point involved at least eight people working to free the furry critter.

“It was quite the operation,” the fire department tweeted.

By the time the firefighters reached the raccoon Thursday morning, the animal had already been “stuck for a while,” the department tweeted. Photos showed the helpless raccoon gazing up from the grate, its little paws gripping the metal covering for support.

Once the raccoon was lathered up with soap and water, firefighters tried to slide it free with a bit of gentle tugging. The frantic animal, now covered in suds and slightly disheveled, barely budged.

“I think a lot of them were surprised it just sort of didn’t pop right out,” Fricke said.

Still, they didn’t give up. At some point, the entire grate was removed from the road and repositioned on a nearby patch of grass. When an ambulance that had been in the area stopped at the scene, Fricke said the firefighters got creative. They drew inspiration from a technique used to remove stuck rings from fingers — which involves tightly wrapping dental floss or fishing line around the swollen digit to compress it — and tried swaddling the raccoon in medical dressing, he said. That didn’t work either.

“Those guys, try as they might, didn’t really have the tools to free the raccoon,” Fricke said.

Reinforcements were required.

Animal control from the neighboring town of Waltham, Mass., about three miles north of Newton, was called and the officer arrived along with a veterinarian, Fricke said.

“The raccoon ended up needing to be sedated so that it could relax enough,” he said. “It was fighting the whole process.”

When the raccoon stopped struggling, rescuers were finally able to free it. Fricke said Waltham Animal Control is keeping the raccoon for observation and will release it back into the wild after the sedation wears off and it’s determined to be healthy.

“Everybody’s just happy that there was a positive outcome and they were able to get him out,” he said. “Hopefully, he will recover and be off and live his life.”

The raccoon’s uncomfortable predicament was “a first” for Fricke, who has been with the Newton Fire Department for about 15 years. But in recent years, there have been several reported incidents of the masked critters getting themselves into similar situations nationwide. Raccoons, which are known for eating just about anything, sometimes go into sewers in search of food.

Genemat designed and manufactured bespoke composite covers to fit directly into the existing frames making installation quick and easy. Genemat covers are anti-corrosion; lightweight and securable, and can be safely removed and replaced by two people using lifting handle.Genemat covers have been engineered to provide a safe walking and driving surface, tested to be equivalent to a modern high-grade road surface. The customer opted for covers in a custom color to complement the surrounding area.

The city road now has a long-term solution that requires minimal maintenance and will continue to perform year after year, allowing safe and fast authorised access whilst eliminating previous manual handling issues and providing a safe walking and driving surface for users in all weather conditions.