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Nice kitten rescue story!
This article is in our Providence Journal newspaper this morning.
Many hands join to free trapped kitten
01:00 AM EDT on Friday, May 11, 2007
By Michael P. McKinney
Projo.com Staff Writer
The cat that was rescued from a storm drain Wednesday morning.
The Providence Journal / Bob Thayer Bob Thayer
LITTLE COMPTON — It doesn’t happen that often, not even here. But Wednesday it did, prompting a news release from the Little Compton Fire Department.
The news? The Fire Department, with the help of local veterinarian Dr. Kenneth Rix, rescued a stray cat early Wednesday morning.
The cat’s head was stuck in the grate of a Crandall Road storm drain in the Adamsville section, the Fire Department said.
The cat apparently got into the drain through a pipe on neighboring property and tried to leave through the grate.
Carol Acebes of Long Highway, who was leaving town at about 3 a.m. on the way to an airport, saw “the glint from the cat’s eyes in the headlights of their car,” the Fire Department said, and notified authorities.
Lt. Randy Watt and Firefighter Wayne Medeiros removed the grate from the drain and tried to free the cat’s head by using some water-soluble lubricant.
That didn’t work. Capt. Donald Medeiros was called in to help and a call was made to Dr. Rix of the Sakonnet Veterinary Hospital in Tiverton. He lives less than a mile away.
Rix retrieved the necessary tools and medications from his office, and sedated the cat. The cat was relaxed, so its head could be slipped back through the metal grate.
After that, the news release states, “Doctor Rix transported the cat back to his office to recover from its ordeal and await adoption.”
“We’ve had animal rescues before, but nothing of this nature,” Captain Medeiros said.
“When the lieutenant called me in to see if I could help him out, all I knew was an animal trapped in a drain and I’m thinking, ‘What kind of animal — maybe a raccoon — who knows what it is.’ ”
Then he recalled a newspaper story of a cat rescue in Bristol in recent years.
And then he arrived, and there it was: a cat rescue.
It was all over in about three hours.
Yesterday, Rix said the cat appeared to be feral, “a wild cat, not handleable.”
“It is a young, unneutered male,” probably about eight or nine months old, he added.
It will take a while to see if the cat calms down and is adoptable, he said. Sometimes wild cats are just scared when they are captured and calm down as they get used to having a protected home and regular feedings.
“We will give him some time,” the veterinarian concluded.
Little
Compton
http://www.projo.com/ri/littlecompto...7.38c8b6a.html
