In the UK, an old woman has been rescued after falling into a narrow valley all thanks to her cat who helped rescuers find her.
According to a Facebook post from Bodmin Police in Cornwall, UK, officers were searching for the 83-year-old woman after she went missing from her home on Saturday.
The rescue mission was launched when the neighbors got concerned about the woman’s whereabouts and called the emergency services. The woman had been missing for over an hour.
Police went searching for her until someone heard the elderly woman’s cat named Piran.
Piran’s continuous meowing led rescuers to the 83-year-old, who had fallen down the nearby drop “with incredibly difficult access and uneven terrain” and into a stream.
Cornwall police said emergency crews were alerted to the injured woman by Piran, who was meowing from the corner of a large maize field near her home.
“The elderly female had fallen approximately 70ft down a very steep embankment, with incredibly difficult access and uneven terrain,” the police said. “Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service were in attendance, along with their specialist water rescue team, Cornwall Air Ambulance, and Southwestern Ambulance Service.”
A witness told the BBC the cat’s “quite persistent” meows were all it took to direct rescuers to its owner.
“It’s a massive “well done” to all the emergency services who worked together, and to Piran, the outcome could have been a lot worse,” the witness said.
It didn’t take long for Tamar Longmuir, 38, to trace her elderly neighbor once she followed Piran’s lead, she told Sky News.
“The cat is very attached to her, and he was going back and forth in the gateway and meowing, so I decided to go and search the maize field,” Tamar said.
Tamar explained that due to her being unable to access the embankment, she had to shout down to the woman to check she was conscious.
“Without the cat waiting at the gate to that field, it could have been hours later that I or anyone else would have checked in there,” she added.
“Just as I was going to go off the path and start going through the crop, I heard a very faint response to my calling.point 222 |
I then quickly realized my neighbor was down the 70-foot ravine,” Tamar told Sky News.point 78 | “She had gone through the barbed wire and was laying in the stream — we think she had been in there for hours.point 174 | ”point 181 | 1
Rescuers lifted the woman up the ravine on a stretcher and flew her to a hospital in an air ambulance. She is in stable condition.
On Monday, police said the woman was still receiving care but was in “good spirits.”
“Whilst the lady concerned is still currently receiving care, she is in good spirits and is being well looked after,” the police department said.