Yes, We Still Do That

I was just thinking about getting ready for bed when the phone rang. The captain must have picked it up in his office because it only rang once and I didn't pick it up in time. A minute later the intercom came on and the captain announced, "We're getting a call".

I slid down the pole and met my captain by the printer. I asked what we were going on and he smiled, shook his head, and said, "The cops need assistance....with a cat stuck in a fence". We spent the drive over to the call trying to figure out how a cat gets stuck IN a fence and what the cops expected us to do about it - fire up the chainsaw? get the 'jaws of life'? We figured we could just crank up the siren and honk the horn - that usually gets cats moving pretty quick. I was hoping it was a chain link fence and perhaps the cats head was stuck and we could just snip a couple wires and be done with it.

When I pulled up on scene, I grabbed my leather rescue gloves, hopped out and met with the officer on scene. He too was smiling and shaking his head, apologizing for bringing us out for this and explaining that he just couldn't get the cat unstuck. He led us to a fence separating two apartment buildings and there was what appeared to be a magical floating cat. The cat had apparently tried to jump the fence and got one if it's back legs caught between the boards and then slid down, completely wedging itself between the boards.



The leg was obviously broken and pretty mangled and the cat was literally hanging off the fence by it's back leg. Someone had placed a chair against the fence so the cat could get his front paws on it to take some of the weight off his leg.

We knew we couldn't come near this thing with a power tool or it was going to go ballistic, so we decided on brute force muscling of the fence. Since I was the only one who thought to bring gloves I was designated as cat wrangler. I held the cat up by the scruff of the neck and tried to keep it from going nuts while the rest of the crew went around to the other side of the fence and pried apart the two boards. The cop had a box waiting and when the boards were pulled apart I immediately set the cat into the box. Of course the box had no lid, so I was stuck keeping the cat pinned to the bottom of the box so he wouldn't then tear me to shreds.

My captain found an igloo style cooler nearby and we placed the cat inside, tore the cardboard box up and used it as spacers below the lid for air entry and duct taped the cooler shut. It worked great. There was plenty of room for air to get in but the cat couldn't get out. Use number 1002 for duct tape - cat rescue transport.



The cop put the cooler in the back of his squad car and drove him off to the local 24 hour emergency vet.


In the 'no good deed goes unpunished' category, my captain did follow up that night to see what happened to the cat. The cat was put down by the vet. It turns out that he had a spiral fracture to the back leg, was a feral, un-neutered male with missing front teeth, evidence of many fights, and........SCABIES.

I proceeded directly to the shower and then threw everything I was wearing in the wash.

So, yes, the fire department still goes out to rescue stuck cats. It just doesn't always turn out the way you'd hope.