With Its Tiny Head Hopelessly Stuck in a Tire Rim and Time Fast Running Out, a Newly-Born Kitten Is Shown Nothing but Compassion by the San Antonio Fire Department

The Pretty Little Kitten Was Stuck Without Any Way Out

 

"A kitten gets itself into every kind of trouble."

-- Jules Champfleury

In either late March or early April, this weary old world was blessed with the arrival of a pretty gray and white kitten. Nameless, homeless, and abandoned, not even its sex has not been disclosed. 

Its very existence remained unknown until the week of April 12th when it was found at an undisclosed location in San Antonio with its tiny head stuck in one of the lug holes of a steel rim that was attached to a tire. That in turn has fueled speculation that its mother could have dropped her litter in the rim while it was lying on its side and detached from any vehicle. It likewise could have been lying either inside a garage or out in the open air.

It is difficult to tell from the photographs released to the public but given its diminutive size coupled with the fact that its eyes already were open, the kitten surely must have been at least ten days old by the time that its existence was discovered by an unidentified family. More than likely it was found either on the family's property or nearby but the whereabouts of its mother and siblings has not been made public.

Even more egregiously, the family callously allowed it to languish in the rim for at least two days before even attempting to procure help for it. It therefore is nothing short of amazing that it was able to have held on for as long as it did under such trying circumstances. 

That is especially the case in that it appears to have been far too young to have yet been weaned and with its mother, apparently, nowhere in sight it did not have any means of procuring nourishment. It is remotely possible that the family could have gotten some nourishment into it by using either a bottle or a syringe but that has not been disclosed.

Although the logical thing for the family to have done would have been for it to have reached out to either the San Antonio Feral Cat Coalition or the San Antonio Humane Society for assistance, it instead delivered the kitten, including the rim and tire, to engine company eleven of the San Antonio Fire Department (SAFD) at 610 South Frio Street. The kitten's second piece of good luck occurred when the firemen not only readily consented to mount a last-minute rescue but they additionally possessed the tools and the savior-faire in order to do so both successfully and with alacrity.

The Firemen Tried Both Soap and a Spoon but Failed to Free It

With no time left to waste, they first applied soap to the kitten and the rim but when that ploy failed to bear fruit they next attempted, unsuccessfully as it turned out, to free it by using a spoon. Finally, they were forced into using an electric  saw in order to cut the rim in two.

That delicate maneuver was successfully executed by having one fireman to wield the saw while an assistant used a spoon in order to keep the kitten's tiny head out of harm's way. Even so, there simply is not any conceivable way that it could not have been anything other than frightened to death by the loud noises churned out by the saw and the flying splinters of metal.

Considering all that it already had been put through during its brief existence, the kitten surely must have thought by that time that it had descended into the bowels of Hell itself and that the fireman were operating in league with Satan himself. "What on earth is next?" it likely thought to itself. 

Once it had been freed from its purgatory, it was given oxygen but otherwise it did not appear to be any worse for the wear. (See Tag-24 of Dresden, April 22, 2021, "Katze steck mit Kopf in Autoflege und muss von Feuerwehr gerettet werden" and the Express-News of San Antonio, April 16, 2021, "San Antonio Kitten Who Got Stuck in a Tire Saved by San Antonio Fire Department.")

Conspicuously absent from press reports has been any mention whatsoever of either the firemen or the family as having been willing to have sprung for the cost of having a veterinarian check out the kitten's condition. Actually, any veterinarian worth either his or her salt would have readily stepped forward and volunteered to have examined it gratis but the petit fait that none of them were willing to have done so demonstrates once again that the profession is comprised almost exclusively of mercenary shekel-counters who do not give so much as a hang about the sanctity of feline life.  After all, most Americans care only about three things: money, money, and more money.

Veterinary intervention was warranted primarily out of a fear that the kitten could have injured either its head or neck while attempting to extricate itself from the rim. Secondly, newborn kittens are such extremely delicate beings that very few of them even survive long enough in order to reach adulthood. Even those that are fortunate enough to be born into environments that are free of predatory birds and dogs often nevertheless fall victim to genetic maladies and a lack of competent veterinary care.

Finally, They Used the Spoon to Keep Its Head Out of the Way...

Even more worrying, although the family later consented to give it a home no mention has been made in press reports as to how it was expected to survive. In particular, if its mother could not be located, the family would need to either bottle-feed it or to procure the services of a lactating surrogate cat in order to nurse it through at least the early months of its young life. 

    

It additionally is imperative that it be kept warm and safe from harm at all times. Regardless of whether the blame is laid at the door of curiosity or chalked up to simply bad luck, there can be little denying that a kitten is a disaster just waiting to happen.   

For example, although the odds one getting its head stuck in a tire rim surely must be infinitesimal, the San Antonio kitten's life and death struggle is proof that such accidents do occur. "A kitten gets itself into every kind of trouble," Jules Champfleury once astutely observed.

Once the wholesale number of kittens that are killed by shelters and veterinarians every day are added to those that owners routinely abandon and dump it becomes perfectly clear that neither their lives nor presence is valued by societies. That alone makes the compassion shown this particular kitten by the SAFD all the more extraordinary. Therefore, whereas fireman are more popularly known for doffing their hard hats to pretty young girls as they careen around corners on two wheels at breakneck speed in their engines all the while hanging on for dear life with their other hand, now is the time for all lovers of the species to take off theirs in appreciation to those of engine company number eleven in San Antonio.

Even so the local rag, the Express News, gave the firemen's heroics short shrift. Specifically, although its Madalyn Mendoza did receive a byline for stirring her lazy and disinterested bones long enough in order to scratch out six brief captions, she was totally unable to muster enough energy in order to author so much as a solitary sentence of prose on behalf of either the kitten or the firemen.

The editors of the rag were likewise deaf, dumb, and blind to the news value of this rare and compelling story of a kitten's indomitable will to live and the remarkable compassion shown it by the dedicated firemen. In fact, the story received far more mentions in the foreign press than it did in either San Antonio or across the United States.

...as an Electric Saw Was Used to Cut Through the Rim

In a way that is anything but surprising in that although San Antonio apparently has made some small measure of progress in recent years in how that it treats homeless kittens and cats, as late as 2006 it was still a capital offense for one to be homeless in the Japanese Tea Gardens of Brackenridge Park and elsewhere across the city. (See Cat Defender posts of October 9, 2006 and January 18, 2007 entitled, respectively, "Animal  Rights Groups Pressure San Antonio Officials to Stop Killing Cats in the Japanese Tea Gardens" and "The San Antonio City Council Rebuffs the Cat Killers and Instead Adopts TNR for the Felines Living in the Japanese Tea Gardens," and 78209 Magazine of San Antonio, October 3, 2017, "The Lost Cats of Brackenridge Park.") 

Generally speaking, firefighters across  America are more than willing to rescue cats in distress provided, that is, they are firmly ensconced on terra firma. For instance, they routinely save them from chimneys, frozen streams, burning buildings, and wildfires. (See Cat Defender posts of May 17, 2005, January 13, 2006, September 29, 2008, and October 14, 2015 entitled, respectively, "Firefighters Rescue Worf from a Chimney," "Montana Firefighters Rescue a 'Lucky' Calico Cat Who Was Caged and Purposefully Thrown into an Icy River," "Kiki Is Healthy Again but in Legal Limbo as Her Rescuer, Firefighter Al Machado, Basks in the Glory of His Heroics," and "Because a Compassionate Firefighter from Oregon Chose to Care When His California Guardians Could Not Be Bothered with  Doing So, Monty Burns Is Able to Escape the Valley Fire with His Life.")   

When it comes to saving those that become trapped in trees, on rooftops, electrical poles, and at other heights, however, they are deaf to all entreaties that are made by their owners and others; as a result, professional tree climbers must be summoned at a cost. (See Cat Defender posts of February 20, 2007 and March 20, 2008 entitled, respectively, "A Cat Ignominiously Named Stinky Is Rescued from a Rooftop by a Good Samaritan after the Fire Department Refuses to Help" and "Bony-Lazy, Mendacious Firefighters Are Costing the Lives of Both Cats and Humans by Refusing to Do Their Duty," plus the Telegram and Gazette of Worcester, February 24, 2018, "Massachusetts Firefighter Reprimanded over Handling of Cat Call." )

Even more reprehensibly, some firefighters not only hate cats with a passion but have been known to even physically assault those kindhearted individuals who feed them. (See Cat Defender post of May 19, 2019 entitled "The Savage Beating Meted Out to a Volunteer in Los Angeles by a Racist Hooligan Vividly Demonstrates Just How Dangerous It Has Become to Feed Homeless Cats.")

Whereas their English counterparts never have been known to refuse to rescue any cat left stranded above ground, in recent memory only the North Beaver Township Voluntary Fire Department in New Castle, Pennsylvania, is on record as emulating their sterling example. That occurred in 2017 when one of its members rescued a white cat named Forest who had become stranded forty-five feet above ground in a dead cherry tree.

The compassion that the member showed him was most likely attributable to his being a volunteer as opposed to a lazy, do-nothing bureaucrat luxuriating on a governmental gravy train. (See Cat Defender post of November 9, 2017 entitled "Forest Is Rescued from High Atop a Dead Cherry Tree in a Rare Display of Ailurophilia on the Part of an American Firefighter.") 

Although the San Antonio kitten is believed to have been the first one to ever have gotten its head stuck inside a lug hole, it is not all that uncommon for both cats and kittens to become trapped inside wheel wells. For example on November 5, 2012, a lovely black and white Persian was found inside the wheel well of a blue Opel that was parked on Hertastraße in the borough of Neükolln in southeast Berlin.

A Lovely Persian Is Set Free from a Wheel Well in Neükolln

Although the local fire department came and removed the right front wheel, the Persian was far too traumatized to immediately come out on its own volition. That in turn necessitated the calling in of a policewoman who was able to successfully lure it out with an offer of some treats.

The cat later was taken to a veterinary clinic in Doppel in the neighboring borough of Steglitz-Zehlendorf and that, sadly, was the last that was ever heard of it. (See the Berliner Zeitung, November 5, 2012, "Da rad is ab, aber der Katze wieder da.")

Notwithstanding the ultimately successful rescues of the Neükolln Persian and the San Antonio kitten, there can be little denying that motorists, their fast-as-lightening chariots, and the various accouterments that go  along with them are lethal to cats. For instance, Trace of Monmouth, Illinois, lost both of her rear legs in a car's engine. (See Cat Defender post of November 17, 2010 entitled "Penniless and Suffering from Two Broken Legs, It Looked Like It Was Curtains for Trace Until Geoffrey Weech Rode to Her Rescue on His White Horse.")

Miracle and Mausi were subjected to hair-raising trips down busy thoroughfares with only a drive shaft and a fender, respectively, to hold on to for purchase. Fortunately, both of them somehow survived. (See Cat Defender posts of January 5, 2006 and March 16, 2013 entitled, respectively, "A 'Miracle' Cat Survives a Seventy-Mile Trip Down the New Jersey Turnpike by Clinging to the Drive Shaft of an SUV" and "Mausi Is Saved from a Potentially Violent Death on the Fast and Furious Autobahn Thanks to the Dramatic Intervention of a Münchner Couple.")  

Other cats unwittingly become trapped inside cars and trucks and as a result are subsequently spirited off to far-flung locales where they are destined, in most cases, never again to see their owners and homes.

(See Cat Defender posts of November 6, 2006, December 12, 2007, April 18, 2010, and April 26, 2018 entitled, respectively, "Trapped in a Moving Van for Five Days, a Texas Cat Named Neo Is Finally Freed in Colorado," "Bored with Conditions at Home, Carlsberg Stows Away on a Beer Lorry for the Adventure of a Lifetime," "Ally's Last Ride Lands Her in a Death Trap Set by an Uncaring and Irresponsible Supermarket Chain and a Bargain Basement Shelter," and "Schneewittchen Gets Accidentally Trapped in a Lorry and Winds Up in Wien but in Doing So She Brought Along with Her Considerably More Than Her Pretty Face.")

There are even cretins in this world who consider it to be the perfect crime to dump cats and kittens in the middle of busy highways so that their fellow, and equally unconscionable, motorists can in turn smash them to bits. Worst still, they surely must be correct in thinking and behaving in such a patently criminal manner because it is totally unheard of for any of them to ever be so much as identified, let alone arrested and prosecuted. (See Cat Defender posts of August 14, 2006, January 14, 2008,  August 28, 2008, February 21, 2009,  July 2, 2009, July 6, 2009, September 12, 2009, July 16, 2010, August 9, 2010, August 12, 2010, and May 17, 2016 entitled, respectively, "Austrian Officials Close a Busy Alpine Tunnel in Order to Rescue a Kitten That Was Cruelly Abandoned by a Motorist," "Freeway Miraculously Survives Being Tossed Out the Window of a Truck on Busy I-95 in South Florida," "In Memoriam: Trooper Survives Being Thrown from a Speeding Automobile Only to Later Die on the Operating Table," "A Daring Rescue in the Sky Spares the Life of a Cat That Was Dumped on an Overpass in Houston," "Three-Week-Old Lucky Is Rescued by a Staten Island Judge after She Was Tossed Out the Window of a Pickup Truck on Hylan Boulevard," "Miracle Survives a Drowning Attempt on the McClugage Bridge and Later Hitchhikes a Ride to Safety Underneath the Car of a Compassionate Motorist," "Luzie Sustains a Broken Hip and a Bloody Mouth Before She Is Successfully Rescued from the Busy Elbtunnel," "Tossed Out the Window of a Car Like an Empty Beer Can, an Injured Chattanooga Kitten Is Left to Die after at Least Two Veterinarians Refused to Treat It," "A Sunday Afternoon Boaters Pluck Splat Out of Clouter Creek after She Is Thrown Off of the Mark Clark Expressway Bridge in Charleston," "Gia and Mr. T. Survive Separate Attempts Made on Their Lives after They Are Abandoned on Busy Bridges During Inclement Weather, " and "The Corpses of Eleven Cats Are Found Locked Inside Pet Carriers That Were Dumped Alongside North Carolina Roads but the Authorities Are Unwilling to Go after Their Killer.")   

Once Extricated, the Kitten Was Given Oxygen

Such patently criminal behavior also sometimes results in Good Samaritans being seriously injured and even killed themselves when they attempt to mount rescues. (See Cat Defender post of August 10, 2009 entitled "A Georgia Woman Is Struck and Nearly Killed by a Motorist while Attempting to Rescue a Pair of Kittens That Had Been Dumped in the Middle of a Busy Highway.")

       

Still other felines are intentionally left behind at rest stops. (See Cat Defender post of September 23, 2016 entitled "Cruelly and Irresponsibly Abandoned at a Michigan Rest Stop, Milkie Is Saved by Staffers Who Did What His Derelict Owner Was Unwilling to Do.") 

Even bus patron shelters are unsafe for cats. (See Cat Defender post of  July 14, 2016 entitled "Missy, Who Was Too Kindly Disposed Toward Humans for Her Own Good, Is Memorialized in Wood at the Bus Stop That She Called Her Home Away from Home for Almost a Decade.")

Some automobile owners have been known to murder cats that they suspected of even coming near their precious old jalopies. (See Cat Defender posts of June 22, 2006 and July 8, 2010 entitled, respectively, "A Used Car Dealer in Virginia Murders Sweet Three-Year-Old Carmen with a Rifle Shot to the Neck" and "A North Carolina State Trooper Who Illegally Trapped and Shot His Next-Door Neighbor's Cat, Rowdy, Is Now Crying for His Job Back.")     

Owners also have been robbed of their cats when their cars not only have been stolen but sometimes right from underneath them while they were sleeping. (See Cat Defender post of March 2, 2012 entitled "A Homeless Man in Washington State Pauses in Order to Take a Snooze and It Ends Up Costing Him His Beloved Cat, Herman.")

As if all of those dangers were not enough to worry about, antifreeze and the various chemicals that are used in order to melt snow and ice on roadways and sidewalks are lethal to cats. (See Cat Defender posts of July 2, 2007 and March 25, 2011 entitled, respectively, "Cats Are Being Poisoned with Antifreeze in San Francisco but Animal Control Refuses to Take the Killings Seriously" and "Compassionate Construction Workers Interrupt Their Busy Day in Order to Rescue Chabot-Matrix from a Stream in Maine.")   

Topping all of those concerns are those motorists who run down, maim, and kill cats. Furthermore, all of these attacks are deliberate, premeditated, and require a certain amount of skill; there is not any such thing as a cat that has been accidentally killed by a motorist.  (See Cat Defender posts of August 17, 2006, March 5, 2007, March 18, 2009, January 30, 2010, April 29, 2010, October 30, 2010, November 13, 2010, January 5, 2011, March 22, 2012, May 2, 2012, November 21, 2012, November 10, 2014, June 18, 2015, June 25, 2015, October 13, 2016, February 8, 2017, April 17, 2017, August 8, 2019, and August 14, 2019, entitled, respectively, "Brave Little Fred the Undercover Cat Has His Short, Tragic Life Snuffed Out by a Hit-and-Run Driver in Queens," "Run Down by a Motorist and Frozen to the Ice by His Own Blood, Roo Is Saved by a Caring Woman," "Eco, Who for Years Was a Mainstay at a Small Massachusetts Police Department, Is Run Down and Killed by a Motorist," "Casper Is Run Down and Killed by a Hit-and-Run Taxi Driver While Crossing the Street in Order to Get to the Bus Stop," "Long Suffering River Finally Finds a Home after Having Been Run Down by a Motorist and Nearly Drowned," "A Drunken Bum Is Foiled in a Macabre Plot to Make a Meal Out of Kittens, Nirvana and Karma, That He Allegedly Ran Down Earlier with His Truck," "Christopher, Who Has Persevered Through Tragedy and Given Back So Much, Is Now Being Held Captive for His Valuable Blood," "Gunned Down by an Assassin and Then Mowed Down by a Hit-and-Run Driver, Big Bob Loses a Leg but Survives and Now Is Looking for a Home," "In Another Outrageous Miscarriage of Justice, Rogue Cop Jonathan N. Snoddy Is Let Off with a $50 Fine for Savagely Bludgeoning to Death an Injured Cat," "Pregnant, Abandoned, and Then Deliberately Almost Killed by a Hit-and-Run Driver, Sugar Crawls Back to Her Subterranean Abode in Order to Feed Her Kittens," "Officials at Plymouth College of Art Should Be Charged with Gross Negligence and Animal Cruelty in the Tragic Death of the School's Longtime Resident Feline, PCAT," "Freyja, the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Resident Feline, Cheats Death Once Again When She Survives Being Run Down and Injured by a Motorist but Her Luck Cannot Last Much Longer," "Harry Is Run Down and Killed by a Pair of Derbyshire Police Officers Who Then Steal and Dispose of His Body in an Amateurish Attempt to Cover Up Their Heinous Crime," "Kayden Is Run Down Three Times in Succession by a Van Driver in Yet Still Another Graphic Example of How So Many Motorists Intentionally Kill Cats," "Bart Has Courageously Overcome Being Run Down by a Hit-and-Run Motorist and Subsequently Buried Alive by His Owner but Another Dark Cloud Is Looming over His Future," "The Long and Hopelessly Frustrating Search for the Kidnapped Mr. Cheeky Ends Tragically Underneath the Wheels of a Hit-and-Run Motorist," "As Peat Tragically Found Out, Alcohol and Cats Are Such a Bad Mix That Even Working at a Distillery Can Be Deadly," "Hounded Down and Nearly Killed by a Hit-and-Run Motorist, Eli Desperately Needs Additional Surgeries in Order to Fully Restore His Previous Level of Mobility," and "No Respect for Life: Early Graves and Crippling Injuries Are All That Cats Who Dare to Set Foot in the Street Can Expect from the Bloodthirsty Motoring Public.")   

The Kitten Is Now Ready to Begin the Remainder of Its Life

 

As far as the San Antonio kitten is concerned, it certainly has had an extremely rude introduction to this harsh world. Even more troubling, its future is hardly in its own hands.

Rather, it is going to be dependent upon its new family for its continued day-to-day survival for some time to come. Most pressingly, someone has to bottle-feed it and to be constantly on the lookout for its safety and well-being. It also needs to be looked at by a competent veterinarian and to, sooner or later, be vaccinated against the various maladies that bedevil the lives of all cats.

If it could somehow make it through the first year of its existence, it might have a reasonably good chance of enjoying a relatively long life. Even after that its family needs to remain steadfast by its side and neither abandon nor dump it at either a shelter or a veterinary clinic in order to be killed.

Assuming custody of a cat is an awesome responsibility that is hardly for the faint of heart. For those truly rare souls who are willing to undertake that challenge with an open mind and a heart that is brimming over with love and admiration the potential rewards are beyond compare.

"Refined and delicate natures understand the cat," Champfleury wrote in his 1885 work, The Cat, Past and Present. "Women, poets, and artists hold it in great esteem, for they recognize the exquisite delicacy of its nervous system; indeed, only coarse creatures fail to discern the natural distinction of the cat."

Finally, although many individuals and groups are nowadays intent upon sterilizing the species out of existence, there nonetheless remain few joys that can quite match that of welcoming a litter of kittens into one's home and then sitting back and watching them as they grow into adult cats. Hopefully, the kitten's new family will sooner than later come to realize just how precious and treasurable a gift that it have been given by The Fates.

 

Photos: the San Antonio Fire Department (kitten) and the Berliner Zeitung (Neükolln Persian).