Denise Williford-Neal of Vero Beach was picking up her newly adopted kitten, just 6 weeks old, earlier this month when he managed to climb into the dash of her '95 Monte Carlo. The family set out food and water to try to lure him out, but nothing worked.
After nearly a day of this, Williford-Neal became desperate and posted a call for help on Facebook, according to ABC affiliate WPBF 25 News. Volunteers started showing up.
When mechanic Ron Spada arrived, the dash had been partially dismantled, but the kitten was still far out of reach. Spada knew the family would not be able to save both the car and the cat.
"After assessing the situation I saw that the removal of the dash completely was necessary," Spada told ABC in an email. "The owner stated to me 'Do whatever you have to and save the kitten.'"
So Spada and another mechanic kept working for another hour and a half to get the kitten out. Once the dash was removed, the mechanics cut open the firewall little by little with a reciprocating saw.
When the little guy was finally pulled from the vehicle, he had been stuck for more than 20 hours.
"That I can replace," Williford-Neal told WPBF of her car. "You can't replace an animal."
The kitten is doing well and has a name reminiscent of his ordeal: Monte, after the car.
People touched by the story continued to answer the call. A GoFundMe page to replace the car and within days had surpassed its $2,500 goal. Monte's owner posted her thanks:
"My family and i want to thank everyone that has donated. I just can't seem to find the words to express how much this makes me feel. I've been overwhelmed from the attention our situation we found ourselves in has gotten.
Getting Monte out of our dash was by destroying our car was done without a second thought. The car could be replaced. Didn't know how at the time, didn't really care at the time.
After Monte was rescued from the dash and all the wonderful volunteers from our community left my family and I sat playing and caring for Monte. That's when we started wondering what we were going to do now we didn't have a car and how we were going to replace it.
Within a few hours my post on Facebook asking for help to rescue our kitten was filling up with comments of people wanting to help. The next morning I was hearing from tv , journalists and the volunteers that came. People wanted to know how they could send money to help replace or fix our car.
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| Monte doing well and watching the movie "White Men Can't Jump" :) |
So that's how this gofundme account was set up. My son and his girl set it up for us. I honestly felt strange about doing this. I also didn't expect to receive all these generous donations to replace our car. I know now God answers prayers. I am witness to that now. Our kitten has been saved and we will get another car to replace the one we destroyed saving him. So thank u God and thank you to everyone that has donated, been interested in our story and has supported us during this time.
And to let everyone know, Monte is doing great! He is such a sweet kitten. This is all just a memory for him but something I will never forget. God bless. Denise"
(ABC30 - Aug 8, 2016)
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