Huntington County Sheriff’s Department’s Facebook page tells the story of this dramatic cat rescue from a dam. Sheriff Newton of the Huntington County Sheriff’s Department received a phone call from a person who was fishing off State Road 5. The individual said that there was a cat stranded on the spillway structure of a dam.
Posted by The Huntington County Sheriff's Department & County Jail on Wednesday, January 16, 2019
A cat had become stuck in an inaccessible area of the dam. They didn’t know how the cat had become trapped in that position. It is speculated that he may fallen off the road or been thrown off it.
The police decided that the cat was in distress where he or she was lodged in the metal structure. There was no way for a person to get to the cat. It was decided that the only way to rescue the cat was for him to slide down the slipway and for the rescuers to be at the bottom of it in a boat. You can see this happening in the video.
The Army Corps of Engineers got a boat and permission to shut down the water in order to rescue the cat.
After an hour they were able to shut down the water and launch the boat. When they reached the base of the concrete spillway the cat came out of that part of the dam’s structure and slid, as you can see, down the entirety of the slipway into the water. At the precise moment the cat hits the water the person nearest the slipway grabs him and places him into the boat. We are not told why the cat launched himself from the structure onto the spillway.
I have judged the spillway to be at least a hundred feet in length. The cat is hard to see because relative to the size of the dam he is very small. You might want to play the video more than once.
The two guys that you see in the photograph below are from the Army Corps of Engineers and they are Ryan Martin and Jared Perrot. These are the guys in the boat. This was a team effort between the police and the Army Corps of Engineers. Great work.
Oh, my god! I nearly had a fit watching this! I could never guess how this precious soul ended up in that perdicament. I’m so happy to see this baby was saved and is now safe. Thank you to the kind humans who rescued.
I nearly had a fit too. I could not see the cat at first but then saw him sliding down that huge ramp. Amazing. I have learnt that the rescuers pushed the cat off his perch on the dam or let’s say encouraged him to jump. I am sure they had to push him (or her).
Yeah, that’s what I was afraid of.
To me I also question how the cat came to fall and why there was no video of that moment. I fear that it was somehow pushed (perhaps by spray from a water hose?) but if that’s the only they could get the cat down in reasonable time, then so be it.
Then at the bottom of the fall it appears that something like a white tarp was tossed at the water level that the cat landed on and jumped from onto the boat. So glad it ended well and that the guys were so happy about it. Nothing also satisfies me more than a good rescue, especially this dramatic.
Closer exam there was no tarp. That’s water splash. The cat must have landed on concrete that it jumped from. Good thing dams are usually sloped so the fall was slowed.
Maybe the desperately frightened cat knew that rescue/safety was going to happen courtesy of the humans in the boat?
They can anticipate/weigh up the odds in the ways of their wild, survival hunting ancestors. Domestication has habituated them to humans, so even though some cruel bastard may have chucked the cat off the road,over the edge, it still associated humans with sanctuary?
I bet you too have experienced a stray in desperate need, seeing you out for help.
Maybe the rescue people threw a stone that hit above the cat & that startled it?
I agree,it is a bit suspicious that the whole final rescue sequence wasn’t captured
Great rescue, none the less!
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