Lucky tabby saved after 24 hour ordeal

Team effort saves "tightly wedged" tabby

ASHLEIGH STEWART

08/11/2013

Supplied

SAFE AND SOUND: SPCA staff are considering nick-naming the lucky cat 'The Pits' while they search for his owners.

TEAM EFFORT: Tradies, SPCA staff and firefighters spent a day extracting the wedged cat.

RESCUED: SPCA staff Claire Ripper and Jenna Woodford say the lucky kitty has been given a clean bill of health. 

After a 24-hour effort from a group of tradies, the SPCA and the fire brigade, a cat ''tightly wedged'' behind a concrete wall at a construction site has been rescued.

It took the three groups more than a day to free the male tabby from behind a concrete wall and steel beams at the Woolston construction site, after tradesmen on the site noticed it yesterday.
Claire Ripper, of the SPCA, said she had been called to the site to assist today after efforts from the tradesmen to free the cat failed.

It had appeared to have fallen into a small gap in the top of the foundations for a new building.
Someone on the worksite had initially been alerted to the cat's plight by it's ''meowing.''
''The guys working onsite tried for some time to get it out... with these kind of homemade devices, but didn't have any joy. They rang us this morning,'' she said.

Ripper and colleague Jenna Woodford then spent three hours trying to free the cat with catchpoles and nets, while the tradesmen - who had grown close with the cat - became ''really worried''.
''One guy gave it some of his lunch,'' Ripper said.

It was then that the fire brigade was called in. Four firefighters from the Woolston Fire Brigade worked with a catchpole from above and poles beneath for about an hour before the cat was finally rescued. The lucky tabby was then taken to the vet, where it had since been given a clean bill of health. ''Surprisingly he's fine, just a bit bruised and a few torn claws. He's a very friendly wee man,'' Ripper said.

The cat was micro-chipped and SPCA staff had attempted to contact the owner, but the number had since been disconnected. Ripper believed the cat may have been missing for some time and it would now be advertised online to find its owners.

But for the timebeing, it was a celebrated new addition to the SPCA. ''We're thinking of calling him ''The Pits'' because he fell into a pit, and he probably was feeling like the pits while he was in there,'' Ripper said.

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