SCRANTON, Pa. -- A Great Blue Heron that spent his summer in Scranton has received a lot of attention this week after he was spotted with a fishing line tangled around his leg.
We're now getting to meet the two unlikely heroes who rescued the heron on Tuesday.
After almost two weeks tangled in a fishing line, the prospects for a Blue Heron at McDade Park in Scranton seemed bleak.
That is until the heron met Jeanne Donovan and her next-door neighbor Tina McGuire.
"Tina just says, 'OK, we do everything together when it comes to animals,'" Donovan said.
The women from Jefferson Township saw the bird's plight on Newswatch 16. The next day they drove to McDade Park armed with canned salmon from the cupboard and something to remove the fishing line.
Then the two sat on the rocks and used their cell phones to Google Great Blue Heron calls.
"The crane was over there, and he perked up and he turned his head, I was like, 'Oh, my God, it's working!'" Donovan recalled.
Jeanne was able to take hold of the heron while Tina cut the fishing line and sinker from his leg. Then the heron flew away free.
"We were like, 'Yay!' We were yelling and screaming. There were two little old men over there on the chair. They were clapping. It was great. It was like, it was the best day, the best day," said Donovan.
Other park patrons, as well as officers from the Pennsylvania Game Commission, tried to get close enough to the bird to cut him free but without success.
Jeanne and Tina say all they needed was patience and a little persistence.
"You never give up. That's my motto, along with Tina's. That's the story. We're the 'secret women.'"