Thanks for the suggestions. I like the boy with his finger in the dyke, because that's is a little like the figurative expression I'm actually looking to translate, which is:

die Kuh vom Eis holen

Literally that's 'to pull the cow from the ice' and comes from the idea of a farmer attempting (at great risk) to rescue his cow from ice, presumably after he has neglected to keep it enclosed. Perhaps, therefore, the saying is a little like closing the barn door after the horse has bolted, but German has a different expression for that. The above link suggests 'save the day' or 'crack it', but both of these fail to imply that the initial problem was the person's wrong doing and that they are trying to make the best out of a bad situation.