A trip to the zoo can be very exciting for everybody, giant elephants, tall giraffes and the majestic lions are some of the marvelous creatures that we can enjoy watching in this artificial environment. But on this particular story, the main attraction weren’t the animals, it was a man.
It started as an ordinary day at Detroit’s Zoo, the amazed spectators were at the chimpanzee exhibition observing these beautiful animals playing, two of the chimps began to chase each other running across the field and climbing the surrounding trees. But suddenly, one of the animals slipped and fell right in to the water. One would think that this chimp would just fall into the water and start swimming, right? But that was not the case.
The animal was struggling to stay on top of the water and get some air, but it was too difficult for him. You might think these animals are also good for swimming, but the fact is they are not at this kind of activity. Although there are several similarities between humans and chimpanzees their bodies differ on the fat contain, this is the key element that allows a person to stay afloat in the water. Out of nowhere Rick Swope jumped into the water to help the dying monkey.
Almost like Tarzan, the man swam toward the animal and using all of his strength he dragged him to safe ground. Even the zoo staff refused to come to the rescue. On an interview, Rick explained how he couldn’t resist seeing a poor animal die in front of his eyes.
“It was the most pitiful thing I ever saw. This chimp had his hands up and his head was sticking out of the water. He was looking at the crowd. It was like he wanted someone to rescue him.
People were showing me which direction he was in. The water was so dirty you couldn’t see through it. I swam around on the bottom. Finally, I found him… He seemed pretty lifeless, but you could see he was still alive. He was looking at me. I think he knew what was going on… The monkey never made any attempt to do anything to me. I was thinking, what do you do now? Do you do mouth-to-mouth on a monkey? I remember thinking he might bite me if I did that.
Then I looked up and saw there was another one coming down the hill with his teeth bared. I didn’t know if he was going after the other monkey or after me, but I got the hell out of there.”
If you want to know more about this epic story, click the video below and watch the heroic efforts of Rick Swope to help this chimp.
