A Fiery Feline

By: Eliza Hage || Intern

Forget the elephant in the room, we need to address the cat in the car. It was shortly after lunch this past Tuesday when Fire Capt. Paul Christopher and his crew at the Pinebluff Fire station were greeted by a man saying that he needed help. The reason: his engine wasn’t purring; it was meowing. The guy worked at Moore Regional Hospital and told Paul that he had seen a cat lingering near his car earlier but didn’t think anything of it. It wasn’t until he heard its yelps for help on his way home that he realized he had a stowaway.

When Paul and his team approached the car they could see the kitten in the undercarriage of the vehicle and thought they could take their tongs, usually used to grab snakes, to gently retrieve it. However, as soon as they got close, the cat spooked and hid itself further inside the car. After around 30 minutes of searching, Paul said they found him perched close to the engine. They tried for the second time to remove him and this time he took off, bolting out of the car and toward the station. 

Paul said that the next twenty minutes consisted of a cat and mouse (firefighter?) chase. After a while, the kitten decided to finally call it quits and lay down under a workbench. He was picked up by the crew and they did their best to get him to relax.

They named him Gato Malo — “mean cat” in Spanish – because he bit Paul mid-rescue.

Paul said that this cat capture, although an adventurous way to spend his afternoon, was not out of the ordinary.

“I can’t even begin to tell you how many cat rescues I’ve had,” said Paul. He has been a full-time firefighter for 26 years and says that cases involving animals are just part of the job.

He has since softened up in the station. Now there’s talk about making Gato the station mascot, though Paul isn’t opposed to taking him home — assuming his wife consents.