If you’ve ever had one of those days where just about anything that could go wrong, does, then you’ll sympathise with one poor duck who got sucked into a glory hole recently.
The duck was minding its own business and was swimming along the waters at Lake Berryessa in Napa Valley on Tuesday morning (March 5) when the unfortunate incident happened.
A video posted on social media afterwards shows the duck unknowingly heading towards the 200ft deep Glory Hole in the centre of the lake.
Tori Junes Fowler/FacebookThe video shows water spilling into the Glory Hole in the overflowing lake; the hole acts in a similar way to a ‘bathtub drain’ in the sense that excess water is channelled out of the lake.
SFGate reports this incident is only the second time in 12 years that the Glory Hole has spilled over, and it has done so because of the weeks of heavy rain Northern California has been succumbed to in recent weeks.
But although this is good news for the surrounding lakes and reservoirs, it wasn’t so much for the unsuspecting duck, who got sucked into the hole in a matter of seconds. So maybe it isn’t such a glorious hole after all…
You can take a look at what happened below:
Duck took a wild ride but did make it out on the other side!
Posted by Tori Junes Fowler on Monday, 4 March 2019
The video – which has 29K views at the time of writing (March 6) – was posted in a Solano County community group at approximately 9:30 on Tuesday morning, by Tori Junes Fowler.
She wrote:
Duck took a wild ride but did make it out on the other side!
But despite the caption’s claims that the duck made it out alive, and members of the public appearing hopeful that this was the case, experts aren’t so hopeful.
Brionna Ruff, the spokesperson for the Bureau of Reclamation, which owns the spillway, said it would be impossible for a person to tell whether the duck survived from that vantage point – but things aren’t looking good.
She explained:
From what I understand that water is going down really fast and when things come out the other side… I don’t want to get really graphic.
Ruff then explained the distance of the fall – which is about 18 storeys – plus the intense water pressure probably killed the duck, before saying the duck’s chances ‘do not look good’.
A woman tragically fell into the Glory Hole in 1997 and did not survive the massive 200ft drop.
And it now appears the duck might have met a similar fate.
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A Broadcast Journalism Masters graduate who went on to achieve an NCTJ level 3 Diploma in Journalism, Lucy has done stints at ITV, BBC Inside Out and Key 103. While working as a journalist for UNILAD, Lucy has reported on breaking news stories while also writing features about mental health, cervical screening awareness, and Little Mix (who she is unapologetically obsessed with).