Dumped on the Cajon Pass and Staring Imminent Death in the Face, Bugs Is Rescued at the Last Minute by a Compassionate and Totally Fearless Hockey Mom

Ryann McCaffrey Attempts to Win Bugs' Trust with an Offer of Ham

"I saw a distressed kitten on the median and pulled over immediately without even thinking how dangerous the situation could be."

-- Ryann McCaffrey

It was all but over for little Bugs. As a newcomer to this old world and its wicked ways, he had been around for only about nine weeks and now he was going to die.

After having been cruelly dumped on the Cajon Pass of Interstate 15, one-hundred-two kilometers north of Los Angeles, he was stranded on the median in the hot, broiling sun with the temperature well above 100° Fahrenheit. He additionally was without food, water, and so much as a glimmer of hope. 

As bad as all of that was, he was still an extremely lucky kitten considering that the force of his impact with the roadway had not killed him. Of course, it is possible that he could have been let out of a stationary vehicle as opposed to having been violently tossed.

For example on June 4, 2016, a black eight-week-old kitten later dubbed Lieutenant Dan was thrown from a speeding car somewhere between Exits 8 and 9 on the New Haven-North Haven stretch of Interstate 91 in Connecticut. He was rescued by unidentified motorists who rushed him to the Central Hospital for Veterinary Medicine in North Haven where an examination revealed that he had sustained two broken legs, a torn bladder, internal bleeding, and an unspecified degree of paralysis.

Eileen Aiello and Jackie Nuzzo, who had obtained custody of him from one of his rescuers, wasted little time in acquiescing to the wishes of the veterinarians by having him promptly killed off. While it is debatable if he could have been saved, that which is not in doubt is that he deserved to have been given a chance to have lived.

Being far too incompetent and bone-lazy to even have tried, the attending veterinarians instead greedily gobbled up a lucrative killing fee. Aiello and Nuzzo were equally morally bankrupt for going along with the wishes of these despisers of all feline life.

Like just about all Americans, they relish talking big, strutting, and preening but if saving the life of a cat is  going to cost them so much as a red cent or a minute's worth of bother, they will choose jabs of sodium pentobarbital every time. (See the New Haven Register, June 6, 2016, "Kitten Thrown from Car on I-91 Dies; Motorists Seek Justice.")

The same doubly cruel and unjust fate befell a nameless five-week-old orange and white kitten on July 8, 2010 in Chattanooga. Hurled from a black, four-door vehicle at around noon on Interstate-24, the pretty female bounced off a retaining wall and received a glancing blow from another motorist before being rescued by David Livesay.

He then spent the next four hours attempting to convince at least two veterinarians to treat her. "It's a life! It's a life!" he pleaded in vain. "Anything alive is worth saving."

Nobody Believed That Lieutenant Dan's Life Was Worth Saving

He would not have had to convince Henry David Thoreau of that. "Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve life than destroy it," he once wrote.

Unfortunately for the kitten, Thoreau has been dead for centuries and she soon wound up at the McKamey Animal Care and Adoption Center which wasted little time in ending her life. (See Cat Defender post of July 16, 2010 entitled "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 Her.")

Bugs' second stroke of luck came when he was able to have safely gotten out of traffic and made it to the top of the median. Otherwise, he surely would have been crushed to smithereens underneath the wheels of one or more morally bankrupt motorists who joyfully refuse to brake and steer around kittens and cats.

Other motorists stomp on the gas, turn the wheel over, and make beelines for all felines that they are able to get in their sights; for them, killing cats and kittens is a far too exquisite thrill to be passed up. (See Cat Defender post of August 14, 2019 entitled "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.")

In addition to the twin dilemmas of surviving the impact with the pavement and avoiding all the predatory motorists that are out on the roads today, there also was the possibility that the force of his ejection could have carried him over and beyond the median and to his death on top of the motorists below. Alone and stranded as he was, he made an appealing target for harassment by such common species of birds as crows and magpies and that could have caused him to have lost his footing on the median.

Predation at the hands of hawks, eagles, owls, and other avian species was an even bigger concern. (See Cat Defender posts of July 31, 2006, August 14, 2008, August 1, 2011, February 16, 2012, and February 5, 2024 entitled, respectively, "A Fifteen-Year-Old Cat Named Bamboo Miraculously Survives Being Abducted and Mauled by a Hoot Owl in British Columbia," "Birds Killing Cats: Blackie Is Abducted by a Sea Gull and Then Dropped but Her Fall Is Broken by a Barbed-Wire Fence," "Eddie Is Saved by an Outdoor Umbrella after He Is Abducted from the Balcony of His Manhattan Apartment and Then Dropped by a Redtailed Hawk," "Hawk Suffers Puncture Wounds to His Stomach and One Paw When He Is Abducted by a Raptor Hired to Patrol a City Dump on Vancouver Island," and "The Vicious and Unprovoked Attack Upon Pudding Once Again Demonstrates That Birds Kill Cats as Do Ornithologists and Wildlife Biologists.")

It is not known how long that Bugs had been stranded on the median but it could have been as short of a spell as hours or as long as days. He surely was frightened out of his wits and his energy level soon would have ebbed and that easily could have sent him tumbling into traffic.

It likewise is not known how many motorists not only passed him by without giving him so much as a second thought but who also never even dreamed of notifying the authorities of his perilous plight. Just because an individual might not be in a position to mount a rescue does not necessarily excuse him for not doing anything.

No Veterinarian Would Even Consider Saving the Chattanooga Kitten

Bugs surely must have been at about the end of his rope when from out of nowhere on July 28th a savior arrived on the scene in the form of a compassionate and fearless hockey mom. Ryann McCaffrey, her husband Matt, and their three children were motoring north on Interstate-15 from their home in Temecula, a city of one-hundred-thirteen-thousand occupants in Riverside County and located one-hundred-thirty-seven kilometers south of Los Angeles, on their way to their annual summer vacation in historic Bishop, a city of thirty-eight-hundred residents in Inyo County and located four-hundred-thirty-one kilometers north of Los Angeles, when she spotted Bugs on the median.

"We were in the fast lane in the Cajon Pass and traffic was pretty slow," she later told the Victorville Daily Press on August 14th. (See " 'Hero' Mom Rescues Stranded Kitten on Busy Interstate 15 in Southern California's Cajon Pass.") "I saw a distressed kitten on the median and pulled over immediately without even thinking how dangerous the situation could be."

Her initial attempt at a rescue ended in failure as the frightened and panting kitten ran from her. Mercifully, he never abandoned the safety of the median.

Thinking fast, McCaffrey changed tactics. "I grabbed some of my kids' Lunchables ham and tried to show I wasn't a threat," she explained to the Victorville Daily Press.

When Consumer Reports tested Kraft Heinz's Lunchables it found unacceptable levels of sodium, lead, and cadmium in them and that resulted in the company being forced to remove the popular snack from the school lunch program. The small amount that Bugs ingested while stranded on the median should not harm him but it would not appear to be a good idea for McCaffrey to make a habit of feeding the treat to either him or her children.

In this particular instance, however, the Lunchables served their purpose by allowing McCaffrey to gain a measure of Bugs' trust. Her effort was additionally augmented by the timely arrival on the scene of a male motorist offering his assistance.

Specifically, his arrival momentarily distracted Bugs just long enough in order for McCaffrey to have gotten her hands on him. Once she had accomplished that herculean feat she was not about to let go of him no matter how many times that he scratched and bit her.

In between moaning and cursing a blue streak she wasted little time in getting him safely inside her old jalopy. She then slaked his parched palate with some much needed water. 

McCaffrey Took Advantage of the Arrival of a Stranger to Grab Bugs

Matt, who had filmed the dramatic rescue, then drove her and Bugs to the nearest pet store where she purchased food and other supplies for the new arrival before she and her family continued on to Bishop. Upon arrival there, she took him to a veterinarian who sedated him and gave him a physical examination.

Press reports have not disclosed the results of that procedure but, apparently, he came away from his life and death ordeal with nothing more serious than some hijacking fleas and other parasites and that would tend to suggest that he was let out on Cajon Pass as opposed to having been thrown from his previous owner's speeding vehicle. Otherwise he was indeed forcibly ejected but somehow was fortunate enough to have escaped injury.

As the gateway to the eastern Sierra Nevadas that also furnishes access to both Yosemite and Death Valley national parks, there is plenty to do in Bishop including hiking, fishing, climbing, hunting, and visiting with the local population of abandoned mules. Nevertheless, the McCaffreys elected to cut short their vacation in order to return home to Temecula with the newest member of their family. 

In spite of all that he had been put through, Bugs was said to be adjusting to the "family and becoming more comfortable every day" and that is a truly remarkable change in fortunes for a tiny kitten who came ever so close to dying a lonely and violent death in a forlorn mountain pass.

Although McCaffrey had initially christened him as Pharrell in honor of the rapper of the same name who had a monster hit record back in 2013 entitled "Happy," she later was prompted to change his name to Bugs. She did so not out of a fondness for the legendary carrot-chomping rabbit but rather for far more mundane reasons.

"I swear this little guy survived on bugs," she exclaimed to the Victorville Daily Press. "He is eating any bug he gets the chance to, even with his fancy kitty food and chicken."

That is perfectly understandable considering all that he has been through but he should outgrow that inclination as soon as he learns just how much more delicious, plentiful, and easily obtainable commercial cat food is as compared to having to catch insects for his daily sustenance. If against all odds that should not prove to be the case, McCaffrey can take comfort in knowing that she not only has added a wonderful cat to her household but also a pest exterminator who is willing to work for practically nothing.

She truly is a hero in every sense of that word. Bugs is alive today because she not only took the time in order to have cared about him but she also was willing to have risked her own life so that he could go on living and that is a pretty spectacular achievement any day of the week.

Bugs in His New Home...

If that were all that there is to this story that would be great but malheureusement that is hardly the case. Nothing good ever seems to last for very long in this world and from the file marked "No Good Deed Ever Goes Unpunished," an electrical fire broke out at 3:30 p.m. on August 20th in the house that the McCaffreys were renting in Temecula.

The inferno quickly engulfed and destroyed their dwelling and the family lost practically everything that it owned. Fortunately, Ryann and Matt got out unscathed as did their three children.

 

Eleven of their twelve pets, including Mr. Kitty, a pair of Alsatians, two guinea pigs, a tarantula, a leopard gecko, a bearded dragon, and a trio of parakeets, were pulled to safety by the family and other volunteers. Bugs, however, was left behind in the master bedroom upstairs where the conflagration had ignited.

Mercifully, the Temecula Fire Department arrived on the scene and one or more of its courageous members risked their lives by entering the burning and smoked-filled house in order to have carried out Bugs wrapped in a soot-covered pillowcase. Sadly, the smoke had taken its toll on him and he was largely unresponsive.

It did not look good for him at that juncture but the McCaffreys were not about to throw in the towel on him just yet. Instead, Ryann's father rushed him to Vail Ranch Vet where he was treated for pneumonia and placed in an oxygen tent for two days during which time he was administered intravenous fluids.

He is now back with the McCaffreys, who are staying with relatives, and is expected to live. What, if any, lasting lung damage that he may have sustained remains to be seen.

"He is warming up to the kids and my husband," McCaffrey related to KTLA-TV of Los Angeles on August 30th. (See "Kitten Saved from Cajon Pass Fighting Lung Disease after New Home Burns Down.") "I have taken the role of giving (him) the medicine which he does not like. He runs from me and has given me a couple of love bites."

It is difficult to imagine any kitten having been put through as much hell and anguish as Bugs has experienced during the first twelve weeks of his life. For whatever reason, the stars appear to be conspiring against him.

...before It Burned Up and Nearly Killed Him in the Process

As for McCaffrey, losing her home and possessions has taken a huge emotional toll not only on her but also her family. "We're struggling to cope," she candidly admitted to KTLA-TV. "I'm overwhelmed with emotions -- numb, scared, hopeful, traumatized, thankful, and heartbroken all at once."

The one thing that she has not lost, however, is her perspective. "It has been devastating, but it could have been much worse," she told KTLA-TV. "Our kids could have been home alone, we could have been away from the house, or it could have happened in the night."

As terrible as the fire has proven itself to be, the response from her neighbors has been more than equal to the task at hand. For instance, by September 2nd a fundraiser on Go Fund Me had collected more than US$34,000. (See "Help the McCaffrey Family Rebuild After Fire.")

"This has been so traumatizing, but we are getting through it because of our amazing community," she summed up to KTLA-TV.

Starting over is not going to be easy, however. Rents are sky-high everywhere and replacing clothing, furniture, appliances, and other household essentials is not only expensive but a time-consuming affair as well.

Bugs' emergency and ongoing veterinary care is destined to set back the family thousands, if not indeed tens of thousands, of dollars. Most pressing of all, both Bugs and the family desperately need a break from all the rotten karma that has been dogging their every step of late.

As spectacular as was McCaffrey's rescue of Bugs on the Cajon Pass, stopping on any busy highway and venturing out into traffic is an extremely dangerous undertaking. For example, in late June of 2009 then twenty-eight-year-old Rachel Honeycutt was traveling on the East-West Connector in Cobb County, Georgia, when she witnessed two women throwing an unspecified number of kittens from their vehicle and out into the oncoming traffic.

Like McCaffrey, she did not hesitate to pull over and attempt to mount a rescue but just as she had bent down in order to pick up one of the kittens she was struck from behind by a speeding motorist. The force of the impact sent her flying seventy-five feet in the air and when she landed she was on the other side of the highway.

Although She Was Nearly Killed, Rachel Honeycutt Never Had Any Regrets

Bruised and battered from head to toe, she was rushed to an emergency room where she was diagnosed to suffered a broken pelvis as well as brain and other unspecified organ damage. She temporarily lost her memory, lapsed into a coma, and was placed on life-support for several weeks.

 

Thankfully, she eventually recovered but that was far from being the end of her travails. In particular, she was left with staggering medical bills and for a time she was even in danger of losing her house.

Adding insult to injury, the local authorities issued her a citation for being in the road. By contrast, neither the women who had dumped the kittens nor the motorist who had run her down were even so much as hunted down, let alone brought before the altar of justice. As for the kittens, no one seems to have even bothered to ascertain what became of them.

Honeycutt, however, never has had any regrets. "I can't believe I'm okay," she later said. "Everybody I've helped has helped me so much in a situation that brings it all around. Everything you give, you get it back."

Like McCaffrey, she is the genuine article in a world that is composed of primarily colossal phonies who think only of themselves. There are others who also have risked their lives in order to save cats and kittens but in most instances they have received only scorn, condemnation, and slaps from the heavy hand of the law in return for their valor. 

For instance, on September 4th of last year an unidentified couple in their twenties was driving east on the 91 Freeway in Riverside, eighty-nine kilometers west of Los Angeles, when they spotted a kitten stranded on the westbound side of the road. They immediately took the next exit and circled back.

When they came upon the kitten again the man jumped out of his vehicle, took off his shirt, and scooped it up in his hands. A trailing motorist failed to brake in time, swerved into the center divider, and came directly toward him.

The would-be rescuer attempted to jump over the median but in the process dropped the kitten. In attempting to avoid him, the trailing motorist not only collided with another motorist but also the driver of a tractor-trailer.
 

Zipper Survived Being Dumped on the San Diego-Coronado Bridge

One person was taken to the hospital with minor injuries but the Good Samaritan escaped without being injured. The kitten reportedly escaped with its life but it is not known what ultimately became of it.

True to form, the California Highway Patrol (CHP) promptly placed the couple under investigation for making what it has deemed to have been a "non-emergency stop" and for impending traffic. How that inquiry ended is not known.

"The great thing is that the cat made it, but these people caused a big mess," Javier Navarro of the CHP groused to the Los Angeles Times on September 6, 2024. (See "Driver Saves a Kitten on the 91 Freeway but Causes a Three-Car Crash.") "Who stops on a freeway like that?"

If Navarro and his people within the CHP had so much as an ounce of intelligence they would not have to ask such an asinine question. Instead, they would realize that it is compassionate and fearless individuals who care about cats and who are imbued with a strong sense of right and wrong.

Furthermore, if Navarro and the CHP would for once do their jobs by not only enforcing the rules of  the road in busy southern California but, especially, going after and arresting individuals who dump cats and kittens in traffic members of the public would not be forced into risking their lives in order to do their jobs for them. After all, they are the ones knocking down the big bucks and perks.

Instead of doing that, Navarro and the officers of the CHP are going to continue to sit on their fat, lazy, and rotten cracks excoriating and bringing charges against individuals who care about cats. It is a profitable racket to be sure but just about everything about the law enforcement community in the United States in general and California in particular always has been a grotesque sham. (See National Public Radio's "Throughline," May 8, 2025, "California's Bum Blockade" and John Steinbeck's 1939 novel, "The Grapes of Wrath.")

Earlier on September 26, 2023, a kindhearted motorist was crossing the 3.4-kilometer-long San Diego-Coronado Bridge, which spans San Diego Bay, when that unidentified individual just happened to spot an orange, ten-week-old male kitten subsequently named Zipper stranded about a quarter of the way up the Coronado side of the span. That individual attempted an unsuccessful rescue before his vehicle was hit from behind by two other motorists.

None of the drivers and occupants of the three vehicles were seriously injured and members of the Coronado Fire Department along with Corporal Andrew Hutchens of the Coronado Police Department soon thereafter found the kitten hiding in a movable Zipper® traffic lane divider. Taken to Paws of Coronado he was deemed to have sustained scrapes to his paws and rear but was otherwise in good shape. (See KNSD-TV of San Diego, September 27, 2023, "Kitten Rescue Causes Three-Car Crash on Coronado Bridge.")

Hoping Against Hope That Star-Crossed Bugs Is Able to Pull Through

He shortly thereafter was adopted and his new owner renamed him Rio in honor of longtime San Diego Chargers' quarterback Philip Rivers (Felipe Rios in Spanish). ("See KNSD-TV on Instagram, October 7, 2023, "Kitten Whose Rescue Caused Three-Car Crash on Coronado Bridge Gets Adopted.")

The dumping of unwanted cats and kittens on busy thoroughfares is hardly novel. Rather, it is diabolical practice that has been going on for seemingly as long as there have been automobiles and roads.

Worst still, it is at epidemic proportions and does not show any signs of abating. (See Cat Defender posts of January 14, 2008, August 28, 2008, February 21, 2009, July 2, 2009, July 6, 2009, April 29, 2010, August 12, 2010, March 16, 2013, May 30, 2013, January 10, 2014, May 17, 2016, and July 10, 2022 entitled, respectively, "Freeway Miraculously Survives Being Tossed Out the Window of a Truck on Busy Interstate-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 Hyland Boulevard," "Miracle Survives a Drowning Attempt on the McClugage Bridge and Later Hitchhikes a Ride to Safety Underneath the Car of a Compassionate Motorist," "Long Suffering River Finally Finds a Home after Having Been Run Over by a Motorist and Nearly Drowned," "Gia and Mr. T. Survive Separate Attempts Made on Their Lives after They Are Abandoned on Busy Bridges During Inclement Weather," "Mausi Is Saved from a Potentially Violent Death on the Fast and Furious Autobahn Thanks to the Dramatic Intervention of a Münchner Couple," "Stone-Broke, Homeless, and All Alone at the Crossroads of the World, Disaster Is Snatched from Harm's Way by a Representative of the Walking Dead," "A Texas Judge Idiotically Allows Pastor Rick Bartlett Get Away with Stealing and Killing Moody but a Civil Court May Yet Hold Him Accountable," "The Corpses of Eleven Cats Are Found Locked Inside Pet Carriers That Were Dumped Along North Carolina Roads but the Authorities Are Unwilling to Go after Their Killer," " and "Unspeakably Mutilated and Then Dumped to Die All Alone with His Horrific Pain in the Bitter Cold, Highway Amazingly Defies the Odds and Now Has a New Guardian, a Home, and a Second Chance at Life.")

The most thought-provoking question of all is what are individuals who hate cats so much that they are condemning them to be crushed to death underneath the wheels of speeding motorists doing with them in the first place? One possible explanation is that these devils only acquire them in order to abuse and kill them. That is how that they get their perverted kicks.

 

A second possibility is the abysmal lack of affordable sterilization and the blame for that rests squarely upon the shoulders of scum-of-the-earth predatory veterinarians. They could easily solve the problem of the overpopulation of unwanted cats if they so desired but the only thing that interests them is making as much money as is possible in the shortest amount of time and with the least expenditure of effort. In other words, they are not only greedy and uncaring but lazy assholes to boot.

With such a mindset, it is not surprising that they are not the least bit particular about how that they get their blood money. (See Cat Defender post of March 19, 2014 entitled "The Cheap and Greedy Moral Degenerates at PennVet Extend Their Warmest Christmas Greetings to an Impecunious, but Preeminently Treatable, Cat Via a Jab of Sodium Pentobarbital.")

Thirdly, shelters, breeders, and others who traffic in the species need to be far more selective about the types of individuals that they allow to adopt and purchase their cats. Fourthly, it would be a positive step in the right direction if the law enforcement community for once would start tracking down and arresting individuals who commit these utterly despicable crimes. 

Deplorably, the odds of any of those recommendations being even so much as entertained, let alone implemented, are considerably slimmer than those that Bugs had of ever getting out of the Cajon Pass alive.

Photos: Ryann McCaffrey (Bugs), the New Haven Register (Lieutenant Dan), WTVC-TV (the Chattanooga kitten), Go Fund Me (the McCaffreys' burned-out house), WXIA-TV of Atlanta (Rachel Honeycutt), and the Coronado Police Department (Zipper).