Pets

/

Home & Leisure

Cat rescued from Jeep engine, loses leg and tail

on

Published in Cats & Dogs News

MONCTON, New Brunswick (UPI) -- A New Brunswick cat rescued from a Jeep engine may have lost his tail and one of his legs, but he gained a new home.

Wayne Leger of Moncton said his building superintendent contacted him shortly after he drove home from work Jan. 9 and told him there were cat sounds coming from under the hood of his Jeep.

Leger said he popped open the hood to discover a stray cat was tangled up in his motor.

"We tried to get him out ... for about an hour," Leger told CTV Atlantic. [We] tried to lift the body and pull on the head a little bit, but you don't want to hurt it and he wasn't coming out.

Leger called authorities and firefighter Robert Cormier arrived to assist in the rescue.

"I determined we would have to take the alternator off to get the cat's leg out from the engine block," Cormier said.

"I had to cut the belt because I didn't want to cause any damage and there was one other pulley his front paw or leg was jammed in," Cormier told Global News.

Dr. Chantal Houle, the on-duty veterinarian at Oaks Veterinary Medical and Emergency Referral Center, said the cat was nearly "frozen solid" when his rescuers brought him into the 24-hour animal emergency room.

 

"We couldn't actually hear a heart beat because his heart beat was so weak," she said.

Houle said the feline was warmed up and she soon determined his left front leg and tail would have to be amputated.

"His left front leg was entirely mangled and there was not a lot of skin left on it," Houle said.

"Often you need to amputate in order to save a life, and saving the limb is not an option," she said.

Leger said he and his fiancee have decided to adopt the cat, dubbed Robert in honor of the firefighter who pulled him from the engine.

"You can't let anything die," Leger said. If you can save a cat's life -- you save a cat's life.


Copyright 2015 by United Press International

Comments

blog comments powered by Disqus