A tiny black kitten managed to turn Sunrise Highway into an emergency rescue scene after being found asleep in the middle of the roadway near Exit 46. Considering where it chose to take a nap, the fact that anyone spotted it in time is remarkable enough on its own.
Animal rescuer John Debacker said Suffolk County Police briefly stopped traffic so he could reach the kitten safely. That gave him a narrow window to make the grab without adding moving vehicles to an already precarious situation.
The kitten, however, didn’t seem particularly impressed with the rescue plan. Once Debacker got close enough to pick it up, the little cat reportedly responded with the kind of resistance you’d expect from something terrified, disoriented, and abruptly awakened in the middle of a highway.
Fortunately, Debacker managed to secure the kitten and get it off the road. Whatever chain of events put such a small animal in the center of Sunrise Highway remains unexplained in the information provided, but at least the ending was considerably better than it could have been.
Good Samaritan Saves Kitten From Busy Highway
Please give the following video a second to load.
The video is short, but it gets straight to the point, with John Debacker waiting on the side of a highway exit as cars zoom by him. Fortunately, there are officers nearby who temporarily stop traffic so that he can walk across and get to the concrete barrier on the other side.
As he gets closer, you can see a little black cat quite literally sleeping atop the barrier. When Debacker reaches to snag it, the kitten immediately starts getting aggressive, doing everything in its power to try and bite him.
It’s a good thing he has safety gloves on and a special carrier to put the cat in so that he wouldn’t be injured. Now, there’s one less scared and lonely cat out in the world.
Commenters Think the Kitten Was More Upset About the Nap
A lot of commenters focused on the kitten’s decidedly ungrateful reaction to being rescued. One person joked that it was probably thinking, “YOU RUINED MY NAP THE ROCK WAS WARM,” while another compared the experience to being abducted by aliens after falling asleep.
Others were simply amazed Debacker managed to hold onto the kitten at all. One commenter admitted the first swipe and bite would have been enough to make them jump back, while another said they genuinely thought the cat was going to get away.
There was also plenty of concern about the traffic around the rescue. One person pointed out how many drivers seemed to ignore officers trying to block the roadway, adding that it made the kitten’s predicament even easier to understand.
The biggest unanswered question, though, was how such a tiny animal reached the middle of Sunrise Highway in the first place. Several commenters asked exactly that, while one speculated that the kitten couldn’t have gotten there on its own, though nothing in the post establishes how it ended up there.