NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- An injured cat named Garfield was rescued from Long Island Rail Road tracks in Suffolk County after apparently being hit by a train.
A train engineer first spotted the orange tabby on the tracks in Lindenhurst Saturday night. He thought the cat was dead, but he saw the feline move on Sunday evening and contacted the MTA for help.
That’s according to John Debacker, vice president of Long Island Cat/Kitten Solution (LICKS), who helped rescue Garfield.
“A train engineer that was traveling eastbound from Penn Station spotted an orange cat now known as Garfield in between track one and two,” Debacker said.
“He thought the cat was deceased at first, but he spotted the same cat again but this time the cat moved its head, which confirmed to him that the cat was indeed still alive,” he said.
Garfield is now recovering at South Shore Feral Care—and people are already lining up to adopt him.Long Island Cat/Kitten Solution (LICKS)
Animal rescuers and MTA police worked together to rescue Garfield, with Debacker using a net to scoop up the seriously wounded cat from the tracks.
“I asked the MTA cops to go in front of the cat to distract him, so the cat would look at them and not me while I went from behind the cat to sneak up on him and drop the net right on him,” Debacker said. “I was really afraid of the cat running. I didn’t know the extent of the injuries at the time.”
The cat had “pretty severe injuries,” Debacker said, including a broken nose, broken front leg and broken hip bones.
“He was either hit by a train or flipped by a train, we’re not really sure how he ended up there,” he said.
Garfield is now recovering at South Shore Feral Care—and people are already lining up to adopt him.
“The cat got a lot of adoption inquiries already, because the cat went pretty viral,” Debacker said. “And that’s a good thing. Once he’s medically cleared, he’ll get a home pretty quickly.”
The bill for his care is at least $10,000. If you’d like to help, you can donate at southshoreferalcare.org.
