When staff members at Cape Wildlife Center first received a photo of a flying squirrel who needed help, they had trouble understanding what exactly was going on. The poor squirrel appeared to be covered in a substance of some kind, but that was really all they could make out. They knew without a doubt that the little guy needed help, though, so they quickly agreed to take him in.

“We couldn’t even make out what was going on,” Cape Wildlife Center wrote in a post on Facebook.

Once he arrived at the center, his story finally began to come together. It appeared that the flying squirrel had been living inside a wall when it was insulated with spray foam, and he unfortunately ended up covered in it. The foam had hardened into a thick shell all over him, particularly on his face, which had left him really struggling.

“Both his front hands were also covered it in, and we could see, in a desperate attempt to remove it, he was trying to groom it off himself,” Cape Wildlife Center wrote.

The veterinary team gave the squirrel anesthesia so they wouldn’t stress him out, then got to work removing the spray foam. They knew it wouldn’t be easy, but they were determined to help the flying squirrel in any way possible.

Remarkably, it only took about 20 minutes to get all of the foam off. He did lose a little fur around his head where the most foam had been, but everyone is confident that it’ll grow back in no time. When the squirrel woke up, he was definitely groggy but already seemed to be feeling so much better.

“Little by little we used Q-tips soaked in nail polish remover to dissolve the foam and remove it from the fur and skin,” Cape Wildlife Center wrote. “Acetone is known to remove the spray foam when it is still wet, but we didn’t know if it would work on foam that was already hardened.”

The squirrel is now recovering at the center and doing great. Once he’s all healed, he’ll be released back into the wild, and will hopefully steer clear of sticky situations in the future.

Source: the dodo