They say rabbit's feet are lucky, and Bunny has two of them, albeit stuffed, so maybe it was fated that Victoria Maginnis's childhood toy animal would be found, in defiance of all odds.

And found Bunny was, just this morning, not quite two weeks after she literally fell out of the sky.

It took a late November thaw, some savvy HVAC workers and a need for them to be on the roof of the CAMA Woodlands long-term care home in Burlington.

That — the roof of the facility — is where two HVAC workers saw an object that they wouldn't have spotted a few days ago when it was covered with snow.

One of them actually recognized the object. It's a good thing he'd been reading The Hamilton Spectator.

"That looks like the Lancaster Bunny," is what Rob Pearce said, when he and co-worker Kevin Vanderwal chanced upon the little fabric lagomorph sitting upright on top of an HVAC vent on the roof. The two, employees of Moore Environmental, had been called in to do some repairs on a piece of rooftop equipment.

It did look like the Lancaster Bunny — because it was the Lancaster Bunny.

"We just walked around a corner on the roof and there it was," says Rob. "Just a few days ago we were discussing it with friends and saying, 'What are the odds?'"

An elated Victoria Maginnis, Bunny's owner, can barely believe it.

"I'm just so shocked and overwhelmed (at people keeping an eye out for Bunny). She's been a constant, that you forget she's there until she's not there," she says.

Just to back up a little, Bunny fell from Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum's famous Lancaster bomber in midflight two weeks ago.

Victoria took it along when she and her father, Jim, visiting her from London, England, got to go out for a spin.

The very spot where Kevin Vanderwal and Rob Pearce found Victoria Maginnis's bunny. | Cathie Coward, The Hamilton Spectator

Jim, a squadron leader with the British Royal Air Force, is a great fan of the historic aircraft, and was overjoyed to find out he could go up in one during a visit to his daughter in Canada.

While in midflight, Jim decided they should mount Bunny on the gun turret of the plane and take a photo of it there, as the little toy has a storied place in Maginnis family lore. When Jim shipped out to Afghanistan in 2009, Victoria snuck the toy into his kit bag. Needless to say, he was touched to find it there upon his arrival in Afghanistan. He later returned it to her. Victoria has had Bunny since she was an infant.

Jim and Victoria were both aghast when Bunny went flying off the plane during that misbegotten photo shoot. The Spectator did a story on their search for Bunny and their plea for the public's help in finding the toy.

There were many, many responses but, alas, no Bunny materialized.

Until now.

Monday morning (Nov. 25), Victoria received an email to the account set up after The Spectator story ran. It was from CAMA Woodlands in Burlington. Bunny, it informed her, had been found!

Pictures were sent. The toy's identity checked out. The search was over.

"I can't get to Hamilton until the end of the week," says Victoria, who works in Toronto.

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"So I said (to the people at the long-term care facility), 'Keep her (Bunny) on the ground!' I still can't believe it. It helped that the snow melted."

Facility administrator Pat Cervoni is keeping bunny on her desk until Victoria can pick her up on the weekend. | Cathie Coward, The Hamilton Spectator

She has already informed Jim, who, as you might imagine, has been plagued by no small amount of guilt over the loss of such a treasured heirloom of his daughter's childhood.

"He was over the moon," says Victoria.

She adds that Bunny has posed for pictures on planes in the past but had never before fallen off, obviously.

"We were going on sheer hope," says Victoria. "But the other day I went out to one of the conservation areas looking for her. It was covered in snow. So I just decided we'd never find her and I was just going to enjoy the beauty of the scenery."

Little did she suspect.

"It took a minute for it to get into our brains (that this was Bunny)," says HVAC worker Kevin Vanderwal. "I mean, for the bunny to land upright like that, and the building is surrounded by tall trees and bush." If Bunny had landed a few dozen metres off, she likely never would have been found."

"I think I'll buy a lottery ticket," he adds.

"It's a Christmas miracle!" says CAMA Woodlands administrator Pat Cervino, with a laugh.

Until Victoria picks up her stuffed animal in a few days, Pat's keeping Bunny.

"Under lock and key."

jmahoney@thespec.com

905-526-3306