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NORA KOCHThe newborn calico's plaintive cries from an old bank tube inspire firefighters' compassion - and ingenuity.
PALM HARBOR - One minute Thursday morning, two Palm Harbor firefighters were using the Jaws of Life to pull a man from a wreck on U.S. 19.
Moments later, Squad 65 was rushing off to a much different rescue.
A kitten was stranded deep in the tube of an abandoned bank drive-through. The female calico was smaller than a hot dog bun and probably just one day old.
Earlier that morning, patients and workers at the doctor's office that now occupies the old bank were haunted by loud crying coming from the building's innards.
A search finally tracked the mournful wailing to tubes leading out to the old drive-through lanes.
At 11:02 a.m., Palm Harbor Fire Rescue got the call.
Firefighter-paramedics Scott Sanford and Rodney Malpass were responding to the former bank when they were diverted to the wreck on U.S. 19. Once finished there, they proceeded to the Key West shopping center just south of Alderman Road on Alt. U.S. 19 to rescue the kitten.
First, they tried to reach into the tube, but the newborn kitten was crouched somewhere beyond their reach. The tube, which contained wires to the document transport machine, was 4 inches wide, 22 feet long and buried beneath 3 feet of concrete.
They tried to get a glimpse of the kitten using a piece of medical equipment designed to look into a patient's windpipe. No luck.
So Sanford, who on Tuesday will go to Gainesville to represent Palm Harbor Fire Rescue in a regional extrication competition, engineered a sling to pull the kitten into the building.
He poked a hole in the bottom of a red plastic cup. Through that, he threaded one end of one of the wires running through the transport tube. Then, at the other end of the tube, Malpass gently pulled the wire and the cup through the length of the tube. The cup caught the kitten and delivered her to waiting rescuers in the doctor's office.
There, someone gave her oxygen, fed her water through a syringe and cleaned her face. She hadn't even opened her eyes yet.
The firefighters, along with District Chief Dan Zinge, figure the mother cat crawled through a hole in the drive-through teller transport machine. She made a nest and gave birth to her litter there. The kitten must have fallen into the tube, Zinge said.
Thursday night, the kitten was with her new owner, Mari Rodriguez. The Clearwater woman became part of the original rescue team that morning when she brought her mother in for a checkup, and was asked whether she had a flashlight.
"I heard the kitten crying," Rodriguez said. "She sounded hungry, like she was desperate to get out of there. She can really scream for such a little one."
But now the cat has a new home, an appointment with the vet today and a name, courtesy of her rescuers.
They called her Teller.
- Nora Koch can be reached at nkoch@sptimes.com or 727 771-4304.