It’s always heartwarming to see people go out of their way to help animals in need. Sometimes cats or dogs get themselves stuck in difficult places, and need a human to go get them.
But in a recent story one woman really went the extra mile, crawling 300 feet through a sewer to save a cat’s life.
According to CBS 12, Lindsey Bembli, from Delray Beach, Florida, heard the sound of a tiny crying kitten coming from a storm drain.
She contacted the local fire department, but unfortunately they were not able to find the kitty.
Lindsey didn’t give up. She tried different solutions to get the cat free, trying to lure it out with food, but sadly the trapped kitten remained elusive.
“We just couldn’t catch him. We tried everything,” Lindsey told CBS 12. “We went and got a cast net for fishing, we tried to get him with a net, we tried everything we could think of.”
It soon became clear that the only way to get the cat unstuck was to go in after him. Someone would have to crawl through the sewer — and thankfully, Lindsey knew someone perfect for the job: her friend Liz Jones, a rescuer with Operation Liberation.
“It’s not my first time being in a sewer drain to save animals, and it probably won’t be my last,” Liz said.
While it was nothing new for Liz, it was still an uncomfortable trek through the sewer: she had to crawl through a 24-inch-wide tunnel — and if the cramped space wasn’t enough, the drain pipe also had the cat’s feces, spiders and cockroaches.
“The ick factor only increased as you got further into the drain,” Liz recalled to CBS 12. “It got a little moist and gross at the end.”
Despite all the difficulties, the plan was a success: Liz, after crawling 300 feet down the unsanitary sewer, reached the trapped cat.
She secured the cat in a trap, and crawled back out of the sewer.
According to a GoFundMe page set up for the cat’s healthcare, the saved kitten is six weeks old, and has been named “Donatello,” presumably named after one of the sewer-dwelling Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
After spending six days trapped in the drain, he was hospitalized at Pet Emergency Referral Center in Palm Beach Gardens, but is expected to make a full recovery.
After recovering Donatello will also be vetted and neutered, and placed up for adoption. The page has raised over a thousand dollars for the cat’s vet bills.
On the fundraising page Lindsey praised her heroic friend Liz as “the most bad ass human I have ever met” and said she is working on building “her dream shelter” for cats in Ford Lauderdale.
Liz is now taking care of Donatello, and says he’s recovering well.
“He’s already perked up quite a bit and just feasted like a bougie boy from my hand,” she wrote on Facebook. “I can tell he finally feels safe. I’m looking forward to seeing him continue to blossom.”
For both Lindsey and Liz, it was a difficult task rescuing this cat, but well worth it to save the animal’s life.
“I didn’t want him to die down there,” Lindsey told CBS 12. “This isn’t what rescue is, it’s not out of the ordinary. It’s the kind of thing that we do on a regular basis.”
Thank you to these heroic women for saving this cat! We know it wasn’t easy or comfortable, but it was worth it to save this poor cat’s life!
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