Kitten saved by rope-savvy neighbor

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Kitten saved by rope-savvy neighbor

Friday, February 22, 2013

Photo provided/Brad Klass

Dave Elwood prepares to lower Mr. Kitty, safely stowed inside a travel box, some 40 feet to the ground. The cat climbed the backyard fir tree on Wenatchee’s Princeton Street and stayed there two days before the rescue.

WENATCHEE — Mr. Kitty’s mournful mews wafted through the air from his treetop prison Sunday and across the street to his new adoptive home.

After two days, someone finally heard him. And the high-altitude rescue operation began.

Brad and Tara Klass with the newly rescued Mr. Kitty. Photo provided.

“He’d been up there since Friday night,” said Brad Klass who heard the cry for help when he came home from the gym.

He and his wife Tara had adopted Mr. Kitty and his sister Annie from the local Kitty Rescue about a month before.

He disappeared on his first night out of the house.

“Neighbors said they had seen him in their backyards playing with their dogs — he’s probably the friendliest cat you’ll ever meet in your life — but no one had seen him since after 7 p.m. Friday” said Brad. “We were freaking out, knocking on doors and showing pictures.”

Mr. Kitty had run 50 feet up a fir tree off of Princeton Street and couldn’t figure out how to get down. The Klasses couldn’t figure it out either.

They tried putting food out to lure him down. They called the fire department, but no one answered.

Finally, Tara sent a text message to a neighbor, Emily Orling, who works at the Wenatchee Valley Humane Society.

Emily and her husband, Dave Elwood, mobilized.

A former search-and-rescue worker and self-dubbed amateur mountaineer, Elwood got out his climbing equipment, tossed a rope over the lowest branch, some 40 feet in the air, and used a climbing accessory called a “prusik” to form a foot loop to boost himself upward.

“I slinged myself into the tree with about 10 different anchors, because I was afraid the cat would jump onto me and knock us both out of the tree,” Elwood said Wednesday, recalling the rescue. “It was all very safe.”

The cat was about 10 feet above the lowest branch and didn’t move even a whisker.

This forced a secondary operation.

Using another rope and pulley, the rescue team raised a portable cat carrier. Elwood edged closer and finally managed to stuff the feline into the cage and lower him to safety.

“I felt good I was able to get Mr. Kitty down, because our neighbors were very worried about him,” Elwood said.

“The rescue took about three hours,” Brad said. “It was really cool of him to do that. We’d exhausted all our other options. It was pretty impressive to look at. It was daring enough where I was a little bit worried, but it was pretty exciting, too.”

Christine Pratt: 665-1173

pratt@wenatcheeworld.com

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KIB509 3 months, 3 weeks ago

They called the fire department, but no one answered? Thank goodness for Elwood!!!!!!

twocentmama 3 months, 3 weeks ago

Very sweet story >^.^< We knew our firefighters were going to be affected when their staffs were cut to save things like the TTC......such a sad reality that our first-responders aren't staffed up properly.

Mikeh 3 months, 3 weeks ago

An opportunity to get a stranded cat from a tree is a golden opportunity indeed, for fire crews. They get to serve the public, get a drill in on aerial ladders, give interested members of the public and their kids a chance to see a ladder company in action and retrieve a hungry kitty for anxious owners kids...it's all good. Unfortunately many fire crews these days are apparently too busy doing something important, and my direct supervisors always told me they never saw a cat skeleton in a tree...that they always come down on their own. Thus I was mostly powerless to conduct a very useful drill and achieve some of the benefits I listed above. If something was burning or somebody dying then we had an excuse for a delayed kitty rescue. When the local FD decides to do whatever they can to serve the public is the time I will give them all the support I can muster. Until then, I congratulate Mr. Elwood and whomever helped him, he's the real hero.

wonderstar 3 months, 3 weeks ago

How much would it cost to roll out a ladder truck when the FD is working on such a limited budget? And besides the cat would eventually come down on its own!