Warriewood: Narrabeen firefighters dig deep to save beloved family pet
She had been stuck, cold and hungry, for 24 hours in a narrow stormwater pipe deep under a northern beaches backyard and the only people who could save Misty was the crack rescue crew from Narrabeen fire station.
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“Where’s Misty — she never misses her dinner”?
It was this simple remark that sparked the dramatic rescue — involving a highly-trained team of emergency rescue firefighters — of a much-loved family cat stuck for 24 hours in a narrow storm water pipe, deep under a northern beaches backyard.
Misty, a 14-year-old blue Burmese cross, went missing from the home she shares with her owners, Vivian Dunstan and her adult daughter Alicia, in Hill St, Warriewood, on a cold afternoon in August last year.
As it began to get dark, Ms Dunstan was beginning to become concerned. It was unusual that the cat, who likes her food, would miss out on her evening meal.
The next morning she made up some “missing cat” flyers and delivered them around the neighbourhood in the hope someone had spotted Misty.
“We also put a notice on the Mona Vale/Warriewood community facebook page,” Ms Dunstan said.
“A woman, living in Macedon Place, behind our street, messaged us on Facebook to say that she had heard a cat crying at 7pm the previous night when she was hanging out the washing, but she couldn’t work out where the sound was coming from.”
Ms Dunstan went around to the Macedon Place house and could hear the plaintive cry of a cat.
“I heard Misty crying, I knew it was her.”
She traced the sound to a grate over a stormwater pit in the back garden of the house next to hers. Misty had managed to wriggle her way into a network of plastic pipes with a diameter of about 12cm.
But the pipes were about a metre underground and the cat couldn’t turn around and escape.
Ms Dunstan called triple zero and was put on to NSW Fire and Rescue.
Within minutes she heard sirens in the distance and moments later two fire trucks, including a truck from the Narrabeen fire station, the accredited primary rescue station for the region.
The firefighters, who are normally called in to help free people from trapped cars, or undertake dangerous cliff rescue to retrieve injured climbers or anglers, quickly put a camera down the stormwater pit and worked out where Misty was.
Led by Station Officer Murray McGlenchy, the fierys pulled out the shovels and began digging away dirt and underground debris to expose the pipe, eventually removing the top layer of half the Dunstan’s neighbour’s backyard.
They sawed through the pipe, making a gap that they hoped Misty would emerge from. But the noise and night made here shuffle backwards away from her rescuers
The firefighters then trickled a flow of water though one end of the pipe, encouraging Misty to squeeze his way forward and into Alicia’s arms.
“It was bit like a birth,” Vivian Dunstan said. “We shouted out ‘we can see the head’.
“We weren’t sure for a while if they were going to get her out alive. We were so worried they were going to cut her head off with that saw.
“She had lost all the fur off her tummy.”
Ms Dunstan said everytiume she pats Misty she feels grateful for the work of the Narrabeen firefighters.
“They were great guys, they were amazing. we can’t thank them enough.”
Station Officer McGlenchy said every rescue they are called to, whether it’s human or animal, is important to the firefighters.
“We get a lot of domestic animals, dogs over cliffs, horses stuck in mud and for many animal owners, we are the last line of help.
“We’ll do whatever it takes.
“We’re not going anywhere until we get your pet out.”