Gary the crab rescued from Birmingham public toilet by mum and son – after ‘dead in hours’ warning

A CRAB, named Gary, has been saved from certain death in a Birmingham public toilet and returned to the safety of the sea, by a mother and son team.

The crustacean was found by 12-year-old Arthur and his mother Melanie Moon on Wednesday, February 9.

The mother and son team then travelled for over five hours to release the crab, affectionately named Gary, back to the sea.

Good news stories happen in the most unlikely places, in this case, the public toilets in Birmingham Market.

Little Arthur walked into the public toilets and discovered a frightened and confused Gary, who was scurrying around the tiles in a desperate attempt to find safety.

After telling his mother Melanie about the little crab, she set out to save the little crustacean.

However, a stall market owner warned them against doing so, saying the crab would be “dead in hours”.

The mother and son team were unperturbed, and Gary was first taken to Coventry where Melanie cleared out a salad draw and made him a little habitat where he regained his strength.

After a struggle to find what Gary liked to eat, they chanced on strawberries and tomatoes, which he ate heartily.

Forget Finding Nemo, this real-life Disney story of a mother and son team, setting out with determination against the odds, has a happy ending.

Amid supply chain woes, inflation, possible nuclear war in Ukraine and rising global temperature, there is hope, and young Arthur and his mother defied the market trader’s denouncement and finally returned Gary to his frothy home.

Speaking to BlackCountryLive Melanie said: “Arthur is autistic and doesn’t like crowds so we had been working on getting him out a bit more.”

The 46-year-old added: “We were planning on going to the Think Tank in Birmingham and I thought I’d pop into the rag market to pick up some bread.

“Arthur then needed the toilet and went into the baby changing area by mistake.

“He came out and I’ve never seen him so excitable!

“He grabbed my arm and made me go and have a look.

“There was a little crab legging it around the room and then he tried to hide in the corner.

“I thought, what should we do?

“He was smaller than my hand, and we decided to take him home.

“We went to a seafood stall and asked a woman for a pot but she said there was no point and he would die in hours.

“I thought better to die in our home than in a toilet at the market. I popped him in a pot then in my bag and went around the Think Tank.

“I thought, ‘I know, I’ll get the salad drawer out of the fridge’.

“I got sand from a bag in the garden in the bottom and then salted some water.

“After some googling I found out they will eat anything so I gave him some fruit.

“I found that his favourite things were tomatoes and strawberries.

“We think he was a shore crab which meant that he would have been caught in the wild rather than farmed.”

Melanie told BlackCountryLive: “A few days later he was still alive and well and would watch me when I talked to him, he got quite used to me.

“He most definitely wasn’t dying, he had a real will to survive. He had clearly escaped from the live food stall and had it about him enough to leg it off.”

Knowing she couldn’t keep him in a box, Melanie decided to take Gary to the coast in Devon, and release him back into the sea.