Beautiful Pelican With A Problem

I noticed this pelican was not flying away when people came up to him to take a picture and stare, even though he was clearly annoyed. I eventually saw he had a fishing line attached to him, so I took hold of the line very gently and tried to see where it was attached to him. He lifted up his wing as if to show me - the line was attached to a sizeable fish hook stuck through part of his pectoral muscle. 
A local passerby warned me that the pelican might snap at me. I explained the problem and he seemed to know what to do. He grabbed a t-shirt from his bike and came back to the pelican. He asked me to quickly grab the pelicans body and wings while he simultaneously wrapped the shirt around the pelicans beak and neck. The hook would not come out easily, and a third person came to the rescue with clippers and cut it away. We released the pelican and after a moment he flew off, landed for a minute in the water, then flew off across the ocean. It was a good day.