Fire Crews Rescue Cat, but Not From Tree

Firefighters are in the business of saving lives. Sometimes, it just so happens, those lives are feline.

But this is not a story of the Prince George’s County Fire Department rescuing a cat in a tree. This cat was stuck in a basement...behind a wall.

According to a statement released by the spokesperson Mark Brady, the Fort Washington Fire/EMS Station 847 received a call on June 19 from a homeowner who had an unusual dilemma: Her cat had found its way into a basement wall and she could not find the animal, despite hearing its meows.

Firefighters headed out. When they arrived at the home, on the 13300 block of Fort Washington Road, they made clear that if an emergency call came through, they’d have to leave.

But lucky for the homeowner—and the cat—no calls came in.

To find the cat, firefighters brought out a Thermal Imaging Camera (TIC). The TIC detects heat and is often used in smoky or dark places to see through walls ostensibly to find humans.

In this case, when the TIC was pointed in the area of the “meows,” a small heat spot showed up on the camera, according to Baker. With the owner’s permission the firefighters removed a small part of the wall and found the uninjured cat.

Always with safety on the mind, the firefighters checked the resident’s smoke alarm and found that it wasn’t working. They replaced the battery and made sure the alarm was in working order before heading out.

The cat has the following crewmembers to thank:

• Fire Fighter/Medic Captain Anthony McCormick
• Fire Technician Michael Bell
• Fire Fighter John Oliver
• Fire Fighter Lauren Foreman
• Fire Fighter/Medic Gilbert James
• Fire Fighter/Medic John Bowman