It started out as a good deed. A New York Police Department officer responding to frantic 911 telephone calls about a stray cat stuck in a tree actually agreed to the climb-and-rescue mission.
Thirty feet up, Officer Dane Natto realized the rescue wasn’t going as planned. The scared cat kept climbing, and the officer got stuck.
“When the officer went up, the cat moved farther away from the trunk,” said one witness, quoted in The New York Post. “There was no way he could get it.”
Officer Dane ultimately got stuck himself. He yelled to his partner that he couldn’t get down, The Post reported. Making matters worse, a nearby school of elementary students and staffers were witnessing the whole debacle.
“We looked out the window and we saw the cop inside the tree — sitting,” said Luna Giuong, in The Post. “His partner was laughing at him.”
The solution: Call the fire department.
“They all gathered around and laughed at him,” said Ms. Giuong, of the responding firefighters, in The Post report. “They took their time just crowding around.”
Firefighters finally used a ladder to climb the tree and rescue both cat and policeman — but it took about 30 minutes, The Post said.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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