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Video posted on social media shows a Collingswood public works employee trying to dispose of opossum hit by a car along Collings Avenue. It shows the animal falling off a shovel and the poster asking,
COLLINGSWOOD, N.J. - Video posted on social media shows a Collingswood public works employee trying to dispose of opossum hit by a car along Collings Avenue. It shows the animal falling off a shovel and the poster asking, "I’m not an expert but pretty sure this isn’t how you handle a live animal.”
Some Collingswood residents had the same reaction.
"I wouldn’t even probably want to handle a possum, but I don’t think that’s the proper way to handle any animal,” Trish Barron said.
FOX 29's Chris O'Connell found the worker who appeared the video. He tells FOX 29 he was just doing his job when the call came in Tuesday morning for a dead animal on the road. He never realized the possum was actually still alive after being hit by a car.
“He was suffering. He was dying," FOX 29's Chris O'Connell said. The worked responded, "Yes, he was coughing up blood. His head was crushed.”
The worker, who we are not identifying, tells FOX 29 animal control was in fact called after he moved the opossum to the side of the road.
"An opossum could be a dangerous animal. If they bite somebody you can get rabies. I don’t think the opossum was being mistreated. They just wanted to get it off the road," Timothy Tarte said.
The employee says he's an animal lover and adopted a cat he found on the job. He also says removing dead animals is the worst part of his job.