Flying squirrel caught in emergency room

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RAHWAY, N.J., Nov. 30 (UPI) -- A flying squirrel trapped itself in a Rahway, N.J., hospital emergency room, fire officials said.

The squirrel got stuck in a 15-by-15 foot room with glass walls in the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital at Rahway Tuesday, The (Newark) Star-Ledger reported.

Fire Department spokesman Capt. Ted Padavano said the squirrel climbed up 8 feet to a light fixture and repeatedly jumped off it into a glass wall to evade firefighters.

"It would climb up on a light and would jump off and glide" toward the glass wall, Padavano said. Once on the ground, "it would take off like lightning" and repeat the action.

"It looked just like a little squirrel, but once it jumped into the air, it had like a glider, or like a bat, skin under its arms, like a little square glider," Padavano said.

Within 10 minutes, firefighters threw a blanket over the squirrel and took it to a wooded area near the hospital for release.

Padavano said this was the second time within two weeks flying squirrels have been found in the emergency room, adding the squirrels may have made a nest in the building.

"What are the odds of having two flying squirrels in the same emergency room?" he asked.