When I was an au-pair in Paris a long time ago, I rescued a snail from certain death. I was at a party and opened the fridge to get another beer, when I saw a large snail in a bowl and it was still alive. I went mental and said I'd save it, took it out and put it into an empty fag packet.
When back in my room, I made him/her a little terrarium from an old big glass bowl. Fed it lettuce and stuff. I called it Anatol. After a week it had escaped and I couldn't find it.
Six month later, when I was going back home, I found it wedged betweed the wings of a little gargoyle statue. It had glued itself on there butwhen I took it off, it was still alive. Very thin but alive.
So I put it into an old coffe jar and it joined me on a 14 hour trip on a train to Germany.
Back home, I was so tired that I just put it onto my shelf.
My dad did a bout of tidying up and when I came into my room, the coffe jar was gone. He had chucked it. Aaaaarrrrgh. I told him that my snail was in there. Now my dad loved animals and after hours of contemplating, he went downstairs outside where the communal bin was [in his pyjamas, and it was a night in December!] and went through the rubbish and got it back.
Then Anatol had a good life, large terrarium, with little branches etc.
I picked him/her a friend from the forest. Tehy got on well together. After a while the other snail [snail 2] laid eggs, which I put into a nursery and theyall hatched. I then let snail2 and its kids back into the wild.
Anatol showed a bit of white hard stuff in his side, which I pulled out because I thought he/she had hurt him/herself. That was silly as it was a "love-arrow, its what snails shoot into each other when kissing
Needless to say after another two weeks I found Anatol with his/her head hanging in its little pond, it was dead...
The only conclusion I could come up with was that he/she had topped her/himself after all its been through.
Sniff.
Mind you I had it for 2 years!