“The kitten was stuck and couldn’t get free.” 😰
It was a quiet afternoon in Bristol, Virginia, when Angela Ramsey and her daughter set out to run errands along Lee Highway. During a lunch break in their car, they were startled by a muffled yelp coming from beneath them.
Curious and concerned, the mother-daughter duo stepped out to investigate, but the source of the cries remained elusive.
“We kept hearing a cat but couldn’t figure out where it was,” Ramsey shared on Facebook. “I popped the hood to look and didn’t see anything, but I could hear it.”
Ramsey and her daughter searched high and low for the distressed cat. They scoured the car for hiding places and eventually discovered a 5-week-old kitten wedged in the wheel well above the front left tire.
“The kitten was stuck and couldn’t get free,” Ramsey wrote.
Moments later, a couple of Good Samaritans pulled over to help. They managed to coax the kitten from his hiding place, but the frightened animal bolted before anyone could catch him. The kitten ran to a nearby creek and disappeared into a pile of boulders along the bank. Burrowed deep within the rock pile, he became unreachable once more, requiring an entire team of experts for rescue.
Ramsey contacted her local animal control office, prompting officer Larry Boardwine to rush to the scene. Soon after, three sheriff deputies—Lindsey Clayman, Crystal Maldonado, and Summer Richards—arrived to assist in the rescue efforts. Despite their combined efforts, each attempt to locate and extract the kitten from the rock pile sadly failed.
They were just starting to lose hope when Captain Maynard Ratcliff appeared. After surveying the situation, Captain Ratcliff proposed a solution the team hadn’t tried yet.
“[He] contacted the Bristol, [Virginia], fire [department] to help move the big heavy rocks,” Ramsey wrote. “Firefighters tried everything they could think of and finally got the kitten to come out!”
After hours of effort, the team of first responders triumphantly pulled the kitten from the boulder pile and hugged him tightly to their chests.
Ramsey’s best friend, who had been on FaceTime with her throughout the entire ordeal, instantly fell in love with the kitten and offered him a forever home.
“My best friend immediately wanted this kitten as soon as she saw the picture and video of [him],” Ramsey wrote.
The team of rescuers kissed the kitten, later named River, goodbye and wished him a happy life with his new family.
It’s been a couple of weeks since River’s rescue, and the sweet cat is thriving. When she set out to run errands that day, Ramsey never expected to find a kitten, but she’s so glad their paths crossed. Now, she gets to watch the adorable kitten grow up by her best friend’s side.
“The kitten is now in very good hands with my best friend and [is] so loved,” Ramsey wrote.