FD Service Call Today

I am on duty with the FD today. FYI... we do not rescue cats stuck in trees. That is a big city FD type call because they usually have a ladder truck that can reach the heights and retrieve the cat safely. We only have ground ladders that make that type of rescue extremely hazardous for us and require quite a bit of manpower. When they call the station for that circumstance I recommend people put food at the base of the tree and wait until they are so hungry they come down themselves. 

Mid-morning there was a knock at the front door. It was a elderly female resident that lives a couple of miles up the road and she told me she was a damsel in distress. She was on her way back from a veterinarian office in Hartford and had her cat in a pet carrier in her car. Because she is unable to manipulate the latch mechanism, she had the door tied shut. When the vet brought that cat out in the carrier, the string was gone and the door was latched but she didn't notice until she got home. She thought the latch was broken and stuck, but it just has a really stiff spring and she couldn't open it. I went outside to her car to look at the situation and check out the cat carrier for myself. I then called dispatch to log a service call incident and responded with our service truck. When I arrived at her house she was already inside with the cat. I showed her how to hook her fingers as leverage on the door and pull the latch with her thumb, but she still couldn't do it. I opened the door and stepped back and the cat scooted out. She sat on the rug several feet away looking at me, eyes as wide as dinner plates... and then she beat it up the stairs. I conversed with the resident for a few minutes before clearing the call and returning to quarters. So this is as close as I ever got to the cat rescue scenario.

 

Here is the official narrative from our NFIRS (National Fire Incident Reporting System)

"Resident stopped by Station XX looking for assistance with a cat stuck in a cat carrier. She had been to the vet and they locked the carrier. The resident could not open it due to the heavy spring on the latch. If the door was left loose in the vehicle the cat would escape. She requested assistance at her home to release the cat inside the house. Service-XXX responded to the resident's home and the cat was released safely."