"Feline Frenzy" Strikes Dixwell Station

Sections

Neighborhoods

Features

NHI Newsletter

Legal Notices

Some Favorite Sites

Government/ Community Links

“Feline Frenzy” Strikes Dixwell Station

by Paul Bass | Oct 12, 2011 3:10 pm

(12) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author

Posted to: Dixwell, Newhallville

Paul Bass Photo Oh no, Lt. Tommy Michaels said. I’m not climbing into some water-filled sewer to grab a hidden kitten.

Michaels knew that his friend on the police force, Lt. Holly Wasilewski, had done that the week before. She and fellow cops and firefighters spent more than two hours rescuing a kitten in the Hill. He’d razzed her about it. Firefighters don’t usually end up rescuing cats in New Haven. They rescue people.

Then a call came in around 10 p.m. Monday night: A kitten was reported trapped underneath Winchester Avenue in the Newhallville neighborhood.

Michaels, who was in charge of the crew at Dixwell’s Goffe Street station during that shift, laughed about it with his fellow firefighters. “Feline frenzy,” he called it.

But in no time he, Matt Kennedy, Jose Maldonado, and Troy Adams were on the scene with their ladder truck. And a half-dozen sad-looking little kids were on the street beseeching them for help.

How could they not do what it took to rescue that kitten?

Michaels peered down six feet into the dark of the storm sewer. He considered imitating Wasilewski and spending an hour standing hunched over in the water.

There had to be another way.

Michaels may not be an animal lover like Wasilewski. Growing up on Long Island, he had a different passion: playing games at an arcade on Hempstead Turnpike.

That arcade touch would prove felicitous for the feline on Winchester Avenue.

Tuna Lure

The fire crew shined a flashlight down into the sewer. No sign of the kitty.

Michaels knew that a separate pipe branched off from the sewer, connecting to other pipes around the city. The kitten, he figured, “could have been in Massachusetts for all I knew.”

Then one of the little girls on the street stepped forward. “He hasn’t eaten,” she said of the kitten. She brought a can of tuna fish. Kennedy threw a piece into the hole.

Out popped a little kitten head from the connecting pipe.

“Oh! There he is,” someone said.

The kitten pawed at the tuna. The firefighters got to work.

Kennedy made a loose noose from some rope. He knelt by the side of the drain and lowered it. Maldonado held the flashlight so everyone could watch. Kennedy almost got the rope around the kitten’s neck. Then it slipped off.

Michaels had an idea. “I didn’t want to waste all the tuna,” he figured. “He [the kitten] was going for it.”

So Michaels retrieved a plastic tarp from the ladder truck. He lowered it “like a sling” in the drain. Kennedy and Maldonado held the sides of the tarp as Michaels threw the rest of the canned tuna into the tarp.

The kitten approach the tuna. Michaels quickly lowered a slip knot, maneuvered it around the kitten’s neck, tried to slip it around the kitten’s paw as well.

“It was like one of those arcade games,” Michaels said.

The kitten slipped out of the noose again, but onto the tarp. Its footing was unsteady. “Pull it [the tarp] up quick!” Michaels said. Kennedy and Adams did. They wrapped the tiny shivering wet grayish-white kitten in a blanket (“It couldn’t have been more than four weeks old,” Michaels said), handed it to the girl, who like the rest of the kids was “ecstatic.”

“We did it for the kids,” Maldonado said.

“I hate to brag,” Michaels said. “But we did it in 25 minutes.”

Trees? No Problem

The Dixwell crew has had lots of practice rescuing humans from fires, but not rescuing cats. Monday night was Michaels’ first cat rescue in 17 years on the job. In fact, among the four firefighters, only Kennedy had responded to a cat-rescue call before.

And his crew that time ended up needing to rescue a firefighter, not the cat.

It happened about 10 years ago, Kennedy said. A cat was in a tree. One of his fellow firefighters “ran up a tree to impress some girls.”

The cat scratched the firefighter pretty bad. The firefighter got scared; his colleagues helped him down.

“They taught us in the academy: You never see cat bones in a tree. They always come down,” Kennedy said.

Sewers, on the other hand? Sometimes you need a firefighter after all.

Previous Firefighters of the Week:

• Billy Gould

Comments

posted by: Edward Francis on October 12, 2011 3:40pm

Historically the fire department would be called to remove cats from the upper branches of trees…it is a human instinct for people to be concerned with the continious meow emanating from the the tree with a crowd of people standing by asking did someone call the fire department? Firefighters as a group are very talented and never turn their back on a challenge. I can remember the day when the NHFD responded to rescue a dog from a rooftop - this time is was a bark and not a meow. The dog had jumped out a window and landed on a roof. Support your firefighters because the cat they save just might be yours.

posted by: dont call me fireman on October 12, 2011 4:17pm

I am a firefighter in New Haven. This article is embarrassing

posted by: che on October 12, 2011 6:19pm

@ dont call me a fireman. You need to “lighten up”. Firemen are one of the most unselfish people I know and you should be proud to be in a group that cares about all aspects of the job, even the parts that are not included. ...

posted by: amicahomi on October 12, 2011 7:05pm

“Don’t call me fireman”:

I’m honestly curious. Why?

posted by: cedarhillresident on October 12, 2011 8:05pm

I liked the story. Why, because there was a group of kids seeing our FD as hero’s (saving a kitten like the do in the story books they read). I thought that was a great thing. Everyone one of them will want to be fire fighter for months now! What a great memory for them to have. And I can bet everyone of them will respect men in uniform differently because of this experience.

posted by: Hmmm... on October 12, 2011 8:51pm

Cute story but what I wanna know is why those kids were out on the street at 10:00 p.m. on a school night!?

posted by: Support your local Fireman on October 12, 2011 9:34pm

Edward,
I couldn’t have said it better myself. Meow.

posted by: What time is bed time? on October 13, 2011 7:05am

What are these little kids doing out on the the street at 10PM on a school night? Where are Mom & Dad?

posted by: Keep Cats Inside on October 13, 2011 9:20am

People should really keep cats indoors. It raises my ire when I see cats outside since cats are such adept bird predators. The vast reduction of North America’s song bird population stems from bird-killing cats. Indoor cats can’t kill birds or get stuck in tress or gutters. Animal control should round up stray cats to put up for adoption (or to be put down if there aren’t enough adoptive homes.)

posted by: monica on October 13, 2011 10:29am

I am so proud of you guys….besides responding to over 4500 ems calls a year, fire alarms ringing in the middle of the night, and the usual shooting in Newhalville these guys are always smiling and do a great job. The stress of their work should be rewarded with a heart warming story such as this one.

posted by: New Haven Jude on October 13, 2011 11:27am

VERY COOL! Good job, Lt. Michaels.

posted by: Its me Kitty on October 14, 2011 9:20am

Hey NHFD, did you ever think that i wanted to be in that tree. I worked for three hard days scouting out the perfect tree. I then had to mark my territory to make sure no there cats claimed it. I took all my energy to climb up to the top so I could be the top cat. Now you come and just decide that i shouldn’t be there. How bout i decide you should not be in your house. I am going to get all my kitty buddies and come remove you…thanks for nothing, Felix

New Haven Independent

New Haven Independent Login Form