Casey Brose took a deep breath and gave Alex Roszkowski a hard-earned high five after the duo completed a gruesome rescue mission: dragging a 4-foot-long lizard from a sewer on Loop 101 in Phoenix during rush hour.
The 15-pound Nile monitor lizard named Archie had escaped from his backyard enclosure weeks earlier, Arizona’s Family reported. He was on the run for weeks and was eventually spotted by a hiker; his career ended when he ventured onto the highway about 1.5 miles from his home.
Owner Seth Vancura told 12 News in Arizona he felt “like a worried father” when the animal appeared on a traffic report on television early one July morning. It took nearly two hours for the Phoenix Herpetological Society to arrive on the scene and capture the reptile. Vancura felt helpless.
The organization works to conserve and protect reptiles, rescuing, rehabilitating and relocating the animals, saying it all starts with education.
“Our desert (and our planet) is in serious danger. It is essential to teach our youth the importance that every animal has in our ecosystem,” says the PHS website. “Last year, the PHS program reached 250,000 people. These were mostly school-age children and teenagers.”
The rescue was difficult due to traffic and extreme heat, Arizona’s family said, and Brose had to recapture Archie after he briefly got loose. He was able to place the monitor in a container, however, and you could see Brose’s relief once the difficult part was over.
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“This is a first,” Roszkowski told Arizona’s Family. “I’ve never had to go on the highway or freeway to catch a lizard like this.”
Vancura told the broadcaster it was “a huge surprise” that Archie ended up there as he loves climbing trees, but it was the happy ending to a long ordeal.
“When I realized he was gone, I didn’t even know exactly what to do,” Vancura said. “How do you find a lizard?”
Archie, of course, got a bath and a special meal when he got home. And Vancura said he would secure the animal’s cage.
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