WBBH-TV released a 911 call about the incident from Cape Coral.
[Ads /]
Dispatcher: "911, what is your emergency?"
Driver: "Yeah, I didn't know who to call, but I have a raccoon on top of my bread truck....and everyone has been beeping me on the street telling me, you got something up there!"
The something up there was big, striped, and holding on for dear life.
Driver: "I got out of the truck and I look up and there's a raccoon up there."
The desperation in the delivery driver's voice hints that the standoff between him and his unwanted passenger was getting tense.
[Ads /]
Driver: "He's scared. I didn't know who to call."
By the time the driver pulled his Wonder Bread truck over at a fast food restaurant, the raccoon had already hung on for ten miles at max speed of over 50 miles per hour.
Dispatcher: "All right, we'll go ahead and get someone out there to help you, OK?"
Driver: "OK, you're the best. Thank you."
Attempts by police and the driver to back the delivery truck into a tree to shake the stowaway loose didn't work.
[Ads /]
In the end, the raccoon held on all the way back to headquarters in North Fort Myers.
His round-trip mileage was 16 miles.
Brian Bohlman, the spokesman for Clinic for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife (CROW), said, "The animal probably felt scared and cornered, so that's probably why it didn't want to come off the truck."
The driver and police aren't sure where the raccoon went, but the company confirms it finally left the top of the truck.
They didn't want to risk getting injured or attacked by the animal. Wildlife experts say it was the right thing to do because it could have been carrying rabies.