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Swan song! Hear how Randi Lass helped save three frozen fowls on BPR!

Wedged in! Swans frozen in Prospect Park Lake saved, free birds once more
Randi Lass / Paws and Smiles

What does a swan sound like when it screams?

Find out right now on the latest edition of Brooklyn Paper Radio, when host and Brooklyn Paper editor-in-chief Vince DiMiceli sat down with swan savior Randi Lass, who last week spent the night taking care of — and then saving — three swans that were flash-frozen into Prospect Park Lake.

Lass, who was walking her dog near the lake, heard the swans screaming for their lives after a polar vortex (or some equally sinister phenomenon that our pals at the Weather Channel invented) froze their webbed feet in the water that quickly became the ice they were trapped in.

Asked to recreate the sound she heard, Lass said she couldn’t with her very human vocal chords and shorter, unswan-like neck, so DiMiceli gave it a try.

“Heeeeelllllppppp!,” he screamed into the microphone. “We’re frozen in the ice! Help us!”

And help is just what Lass did, sitting vigil with the swans all night long while trying to get help from anyone who would listen, including Parks Department employees, 911 operators, 311 operators, people on the Facebook, and anyone in Brooklyn with a canoe.

Of course, the story has a happy ending, which you can read about in reporter Colin Mixson’s thrilling account that made the cover of last week’s edition, but why not just listen to how it all went down for yourself, right now, on Brooklyn Paper Radio!

You’ll be glad you did.

Brooklyn Paper radio is recorded and podcast live on Tuesday afternoons — for your convenience — from our studio in America’s Downtown and can be found, as always, right here on BrooklynPaper.com, on iTunes, and of course, on Stitcher.