A robot built to disarm bombs was put to an unusual use on Friday, rescuing a pet bird from a Sydney apartment block.
Tweety the cockatiel was stranded for two days after the building partially collapsed, undermined by a new tunnel.
No-one, including Tweety’s owner Karen Bruce, was allowed into the building because police deemed it too dangerous.
But help came in the form of a remote-controlled robot, which emerged from the building carrying Tweety in her cage.
Ms Bruce immediately ran to take Tweety out for a cuddle.
“Tweety is a hand-reared cockatiel who likes daily contact,” she explained.
“It’s fantastic to have Tweety back,” said Ms Bruce, who has yet to get any other possessions from her flat.
She said she would take the bird to a vet to be checked out, but that so far she did not seem to have suffered too much from the ordeal.
My warm and furry [feathery?] story of the morning. Don’t worry. We’ll get back to business as usual before the day is out.
Funny how my mind works (and I know I use the term loosely).
My first thoughts were:
1. What a waste of an expensive piece of equipment.
2. I hope they were also searching for people trapped in the building – not just a pet bird.
Followed quiclky by:
1.Hell, its paid for by taxpayers – if there currently aren’t any bomb-scares – why not use it for assisting said taxpayers?!
2. It is great “real world” practice for the people whom we expect to be skilled operators of the robot. 🙂
You do realise that this would not have happened in the USA unless it’s the pet of someone obscenely rich?
Not entirely true. The robot couldn’t get through to the bird due to the furniture (which I assume had slid when the corner of the building collapsed into the hole). So it (the robot) was used to make sure that the bird was still alive, and then a policeman used a long pole to hook the cage and bring the bird out.
But hey, why let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Also there was nobody trapped in the building they were all evacuated when the hole appeared, and the robot was sent in to inspect the structural damage in the hope that the buidling could be at least partially saved, and that some residents could go back in and remove belongings, saving the bird was not the primary mission.