Cook rescues manatee

STUART — Lisa Stukel was working at the Pelican Café downtown Monday afternoon when she learned of a visitor in need.

STUART -- While Stukel, 25, of Port St. Lucie, was on-duty as a cook at the cafe, a manatee ensnared in something swam close to the restaurant dock and got stuck between the dock and a column of the Roosevelt Bridge.

A diner saw the manatee in the water near the docks to the west of the café building and told Stukel’s friend and co-worker, Stephanie Grigsby, a server working the diner’s table.

The large manatee was ensnared in what looked to Stukel like a cast net and it was thrashing in the water. A smaller manatee was swimming close to it, she said.

Stukel said that the net was caught on some rocks in the St. Lucie River.

The café’s manager, Vicki Tschudi, said she called wildlife and marine rescue agencies for help.

Meanwhile, Stukel walked down the bank of the St. Lucie River on the western side of the Pelican Café and waded toward the creature, followed by Grigsby, she said.

“I didn’t know if the manatee would knock them on their feet,” Tschudi said later.

An employee of the Flagler Grill, the Pelican Café’s sister restaurant, handed Stukel a knife from the dock and she approached the panicked manatee with it.

Standing face-to-face with the manatee, she sliced loose a strand of fishing line wrapped around the manatee’s throat and pulled at the net wrapped around the creature’s head and flipper. The creature lingered for a while before disappearing into the water, before any other help could arrive.

“”It felt amazing,” Stukel said afterward, as she was enjoying the rest of the evening off with Grigsby.