A heartwarming video of a seagull rescue operation by a chopper in United States is viral on social media with claims that it was conducted by the Jain Samaj in Surat.
The video documents a daring act of a rescuer to reach the injured bird. He can be seen resting on a platform like structure created on the stairs of a helicopter that is in flight as he untangles the wings of the bird. The latter was stuck in an overhead wire. A devotional song titled "Rahe bhavna aise meri" has been added as a background score in the viral footage.
The tweet, originally captioned in Hindi, translates to, "A helicopter was called by the Jain Samaj of Surat to rescue a bird stuck in a wire. Live and let live - Mahavir."
(Original text in Hindi: "जैन समाज सूरत द्वारा तार में उलझे घायल पंछी को सहायता देने के लिये हेलीकॉप्टर मँगाया गया । "जीओ और जीने दो"—महावीर")
👇👇जैन समाज सूरत द्वारा तार में उलझे घायल पंछी को सहायता देने के लिये हेलीकॉप्टर मँगाया गया ।
— Ratan Kumar Agrawal (@RatanKAgrawal) February 13, 2020
"जीओ और जीने दो"—महावीर pic.twitter.com/kJ9A8a7bx0
Click here to see the video and the tweet is archived here.
The video is viral on Facebook with a similar claim.
Viral on facebook.
Furthermore, a longer version of the clip without the background score was also uploaded to YouTube a few years ago with claims that the operation was carried out by the Indian Air Force.
Fact Check
BOOM ran a relevant keyword search on YouTube with words like 'Bird rescued by helicopter' and found the same video, that was first uploaded to YouTube in 2013.
We then broke the image into its key frames and ran a reverse image search by custom ranging the time frame to 2013.
We were directed to news reports which stated that the incident happened in September, 2013, near the Lesner Bridge in Virginia Beach in USA when a seagull was rescued from an overhead wire with the help of a chopper.
The operation was carried out by the Virginia Dominion Power, which utilised its chopper for the same. The seagull was reportedly trapped for more than 24 hours. After rescue, it was taken to the Virginia Beach Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals for recuperation and treatment.
The Mirror quoted a member from the animal rescue team, Sharon Adams, as saying: "It's warm. It's hydrated. Once it wakes up, it will have Spaghettios and hot dogs, which seagulls love. Then we'll make an assessment about what can be done in our medical clinic."
The incident was reported on the Telegraph and Metro too.
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