Bird of prey gets talon caught in escalator

Usually it’s a shoe lace or flip-flop that gets someone trapped on an escalator, but sometimes it something far more out of the ordinary.

The body part stuck in the Washington Metro subway escalator remained the same -- a foot -- but this time it was a talon on the foot of a bird of prey authorities believe was either a hawk or a falcon. At approximately 8 a.m. on Monday the trapped bird was discovered, and metro employees at the Benning Road station in northeast Washington, D.C., immediately shut down the escalator and called the fire department for the unusual rescue operation. When firefighters arrived a good Samaritan was holding the bird to keep it from further injuring itself and keep it calm while firefighters removed a portion of the stairs from it the offending machinery. Once free, and with a slightly injured foot, the bird flew to the top of a nearby gas station where it rested for a while before flying off, said Pete Piringer, a D.C. fire department spokesman.