See the Incredible Rescue of an Orca Stranded Along Canadian Shore

An orca was stuck for six hours on rocks.

ByABC News
July 24, 2015, 10:08 AM

— -- A killer whale was saved with what rescuers called a “[MacGyver-]type water pump” and plenty of manpower after it was left stranded on rocks along the Canadian shore.

Officials from the whale research facility, Cetacea Lab, in Canada rushed to the orca’s side after seeing the animal was stranded by a low tide, according to CTV.

PHOTO: An orca whale was stranded in British Columbia for six hours on rocks before it could be saved as a tide came in.
An orca whale was stranded in British Columbia for six hours on rocks before it could be saved as a tide came in.

The team “put together a [MacGyver-]type water pump, we grabbed as many sheets as we could,” they wrote in a Facebook post. “It was a team effort, and fortunately on some level this transient orca understood that we were trying to help.”

For six hours, the team put drenched sheets on the orca and ran water over the animal to try to keep it hydrated until the tide came back in.

“She cried often, which tore at our hearts,” they wrote on Facebook. “But as the tide came up there were many cheers as this whale was finally free after [six-plus] hours of being stuck on this rock."

PHOTO: An orca whale was stranded in British Columbia for six hours on rocks before it could be saved as a tide came in.
An orca whale was stranded in British Columbia for six hours on rocks before it could be saved as a tide came in.