With so many streaming services, 24-hour news programs, and podcasts available for online entertainment, one farmer is thanking her lucky stars that someone simply wanted to watch an Internet livestream of a pigsty.
At the moment that Lucy and Ethel—a pair of pregnant pot-bellied pigs—seemed destined to be turned into a roast by a fire in the barn, Laura Palladino, who had tuned-in to the livestream to see if they had given birth, was able to call 911 and alert the farmers of the impending disaster.
Palladino had visited Ethel and Lucy some weeks before at their sty on June Farms in New York state, and took a liking to the animals—so much so that after the farmer had installed a webcam the day before the incident, she decided she would check up her new friends.
CBS news reports that according to Palladino, she was (perhaps unsurprisingly) the sole viewer of the livestream—the only one in the world who knew it was happening.
“I logged on and at first, I thought it was just, like, a wood-burning stove in the background,” Palladino told WKBN. When she realized it was a fire, she jumped into action, despite being 60 miles away, in a different county.
“I just called 911, but I’m in Dutchess County, so the 911 sent me to Dutchess County 911. And the operator, he was like, ‘What? You’re watching a YouTube video?’” she said.
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Nevertheless, the call eventually got out to Matt Baumgartner and farmhand Joshua Vics, who rushed to the scene and saved the animals’ bacon. Apparently, clumsy Ethel had knocked over a heat lamp, which lit the straw ablaze.
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“My mind immediately went to the worst. My heart dropped into my stomach,” Vics said. “I don’t like to think about how bad it could have been if she (Palladino) didn’t say something.”
(Watch the local TV news coverage below.)
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They were extremely lucky piggies.