What began as a dramatic whale rescue in Lübeck Bay quickly turned into a tense race against time, as new details changed the scale of the crisis and the outcome refused to hold. Guests at a hotel in Niendorf first noticed the humpback whale because they could hear it before they fully saw it. The animal was stranded on a sandbank in Lübeck Bay, close enough to shore that police, firefighters and marine rescue teams were call... [4330 chars]