LONDON, UK: London underground trains went over Blitz, a white-and-black domestic cat with a hint of Turkish Van, an estimated 250 times without any injuries. It appears that he was hiding within the rails below the level of the trains to escape foxes who’d attacked him causing extensive injuries to his tail which needed amputating and to his spine which suffered a broken vertebrae causing temporary paralysis in his hind legs. Note: this part of the underground network is above ground.
At about 6 am he was spotted on the rails at Tufnell Park station. They throught he was dead but at 1 pm he moved which resulted in the Northern Line being temporarily stopped and deactivated by Transport for London to allow his rescue by their Emergency Response Unit. That meant 7 hours on the rails which is how it was calculated that 250 trains had trundled over him.
His owner, Mark Piggot and family, were notified by a veterinarian on January 28 as Blitz was microchipped. Fortunately Mark and family had pet insurance which was useful as they quickly reached the limit at £3,000. Credit cards accounted for the remaining $1,500. They had to cancel a trip to the Netherlands.
Blitz has regained the use of his legs – wonderful news and he has been weaned off painkillers. He is hungry and his mood is picking up. He’ll have to stay in a cage for 6 weeks to limit his movement while his spine heals. As mentioned he lost his black tail. It was too badly damaged. It seems that the fox or foxes had chased him and bitten his rear end.
P.S. I have always contended that British foxes rarely attack adult domestic cats. I stand by that but as this story plainly illustrates, foxes do rarely attack cats. Perhaps the fox was particularly hungry.
SOME MORE ON FOXES:
