Saving Splinter.....

What happens when a tiny kitten falls in a storm drain? A massive rescue operation!!!

On Tuesday I received a call informing me that a kitten had fallen into a storm drain on a busy street near campus, and the fire department was working on getting it out. Wednesday morning however, came with the news that the kitten was still trapped. Fast forward over a few frantic calls to the fire department, police department and a very caring plumbing company, and we had a massive 3 hour rescue attempt on our hands.

It turns out that the kitten had gotten spooked by the rescue attempt on Tuesday, and crawled further into the storm drain, where he then managed to fall 8 feet into the sewer pipes and could no longer get out on his own. The fire chief opened up the storm drain and sewer covers, and the plumbing company went to work devising a handful of "solutions" for getting the kitten that was 24 feet away, and sitting on top 4 feet of sewer sludge (which I learned acts like quicksand...).

In the end it took a very brave and compassionate plumber willing to crawl over cut plywood that was thrown down in the sewer to reach the kitten and pull him out. He was severely dehydrated, massively underweight, and covered in nastiness. I rushed him home, bathed him, and forced food and high calorie supplements into him (he wasn't eating on his own at this point). From there I braced myself for losing the kitten during the night.

Much to my astonishment, by about 3am the kitten was willingly eating, purring up a storm, and even starting to play. Since then he's progressed to eating wet food on his own, running around chasing mice and generally being a very cute, active kitten!! He's about 6 weeks old and still a bit tiny for his age, but he's definitely a fighter and coupled with the antibiotics he's on he should be strong enough for adoption within the coming weeks. Talk about a rags to riches story!!!

Adam also named him Splinter, since he came out of the sewer looking like a drowned rat (it kind of just screamed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles...).

Here are the rescue workers descending into the sewer to save Splinter:

Trying to use a long pole and net to scoop him up:

Spliter all cleaned up (although still missing a lot of hair...):

Hungry boy:

Scruggly, but still cute:

This is one kitten that definitely knows its life was saved by the people... I've never seen a feral kitten become so tame so fast!!! He's 100% lover now!