Chubby raccoon in Illinois gets so perfectly plump that he gets stuck in sewer gate; emergency crew arrives to help free him: 'Imagine being the police officer getting this call'

Blake Seidel • Managing Editor & Brand Manager

Oct 27, 2026 10:45 AM EDT

Some stories were just made to be told and loved by millions, it just so happens that many of them involve fat raccoons and the police.

I have a very specific weakness for animals that look like they have made one terrible decision and are now being forced to live with it. That sounds specific, but you'd be surprised how many pictures there are on the internet of animals dealing with the consequences of their actions. Our raccoon in the story below just named themselves the patron saint of this comedic category of animals.

Roud, confused, slightly offended… belly exposed to the world! This gloriously plump raccoon somehow managed to wedge himself into a sewer gate and reached the point where going forward was impawssible, and so was doing backwards. After a fair amount of screaming, emergency crews had to step in and help free him from his self-assigned public walk of shame.

We've all had our moments where our ambitions exceeded our abilities. Just today I was reminded that I am no longer 20 years old and it's not worth the pain in my arms to try and carry all the groceries inside in one trip. Nor is it crucial to squeeze myself into last year's jeans just to prove that I could. Lucky for me, though, those fails were in the privacy of my own home. Our raccoon, however, had a more public stage for his humbling.

No complicated plot, no emotional devastation (except of his pride), just one extremely rotund trash panda learning that confidence and circumference are not always the same thing. Just a funny animal in need of assistance, you can't get more appropriate for a brand like Animal Comedy than that!

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P Pubity ✔ @pubity Follow ... An Illinois racoon got so fat that he got stuck in a sewer grate, forcing police to show up and free him. Images via the Zion Police Department

Raccoons are nature's most ridiculous criminals

I love raccoons. There was a time when I even checked the legality of owning a raccoon as a pet. Why? Because they always look like they're halfway through committing a misdemeanor, and they probably are. Even when they are doing absolutely nothing wrong, they still look slightly guilty.

But most times, they are guilty. They're quite intelligent animals and they have quite dextrous hands, making those tiny little digits very good at stealing and opening things. If they weren't so cute, people would despise them, but they evolved to be hilariously round and fluffy, so it's hard to stay mad at them for too long.

That is probably why stories like this spread so quickly. They are already funny-looking animals, and then they keep finding themselves in situations that somehow match the personality we have assigned to them perfectly. What other animal would get stuck in a sewer grate because they underestimated their fluff-to-gap ratio?

I think people also love these kinds of stories because they are so low-stakes compared to the usual stream of bad news. Nobody is asking you to process some enormous global problem, or trying to sell you anything. All you have to do is look at a spherical little bandit who made a bad decision and the humans who had to come fix it.