A Bald Eagle Is Somehow Fine After Getting Stuck in a Moving Car's Grille

The bird, nicknamed Matthew, miraculously escaped with no major injuries and should be released back into the Florida wild soon.

An inconvenienced Matthew the Bald Eagle. Photo: Billi West

In life, sometimes you're the grille, and sometimes you're the Bald Eagle. Alright, so that's not exactly how the saying goes, but it turned out to be true for an unlucky Bald Eagle in Florida this past weekend. 

According to a Facebook post by Florida's Clay County Sheriff's Office on Saturday, a Bald Eagle had to be rescued from the grille of a Saturn after the bird collided with the car and got stuck in the vehicle's lower air intake. Fortunately for the eagle, members of the Sheriff's Office and Fire and Rescue were able to safely remove the raptor. "The bird is alive and was turned over to the B.E.A.K.S. Wildlife Sanctuary," the post said. "Great job by all involved."

Perhaps what's more amazing than the bird’s survival is the fact that the driver apparently didn’t notice hitting the bird in the first place.

Talking to CNN, B.E.A.K.S. owner, Cynthia Mosling, said that another driver at an intersection saw an "odd shape" in the vehicle's grille and thought it was a decorative prop until the bird's head moved. After chasing down the other car to notify its driver that America's national bird was wedged in the front fascia, the good Samaritan dubbed the eagle Matthew for the Hurricane that had brushed Florida's coast the day before. 

In a follow-up interview with The Florida-Times Union on Monday, Mosling said that she was surprised that the bird, an adult male at least seven years of age, didn't have any broken wings or a single broken bone. As of Monday, after having a bit of time to recover from the ordeal, Mosling said Matthew was eating and able to fly to some of the higher perches in his cage. 

"He’s feisty now,” Mosling told The Florida-Times. “His wings are working.”

As soon as Matthew passes a flight test in a larger enclosure, Mosling says she'll release him back to wild, where, if he believes in signs, he'll immediately go buy a Powerball ticket.