City of Beaufort/Town of Port Royal Fire Department and City of Beaufort Public Works Department rescues kitten

BEAUFORT, S.C. (WTOC) -Firefighters saving kittens stuck in trees, it’s a cliche you may have seen before. Thursday night in Beaufort, the city’s firefighters and public works department rescued a kitten in a slightly different way.

Instead of being stuck in a tree, the kitten was twelve feet below ground in a power pole.

There were a few different methods that were attempted to get that kitten out of this pole, the one that ended up working involved using two phones that were facetiming each other. One of them was lowered into the pole as a sort of remote camera to help find that kitten.

It took some time before the facetime system was thought up, the people who first heard the kitten tried to hang a rug in the hole for the kitten to climb on to… but were unsuccessful. That’s when they walked over to the nearby fire department.

The entire rescue took around three hours. Once the facetime system was created, rescuers from the City of Beaufort - Town of Port Royal Fire Department and Beaufort’s Public Works Department then used a net and that facetime system to snatch the kitten up.

Firefighters with the department told me that they get animal rescue calls about once a month. They’re happy that this was another success story.

“Our crews did a great job, Battalion 1, Engine 1 and public works. They made it happen, and they weren’t going to leave the scene until they got that kitten up. So it’s pretty awesome and we’re very proud of our crews,” said Ross Vezin, Deputy chief of Administration, City of Beaufort/Town of Port Royal Fire Department.

Deputy Chief Vezin told me the kitten bolted away as soon as it got back to the surface. A local volunteer brought some cat food and a trap to the department so it can hopefully be brought to a veterinarian.