An Edmonton train conductor is looking for the owner of a cat who survived an incredible journey through the snow and frigid cold, while nestled underneath a train engine.
Brad Slater was at work in Wainwright, Alta. on Sunday. While checking the engines, he heard something unusual coming from underneath one of the train cars.
“I got to the second engine and I heard the saddest cat cry. And I’m looking around and I’m like, ‘What?’ I’m shining my light and I see these eyes… There’s a cat,” he exclaimed.
“Sure enough there he was and (I called him), ‘here buddy,’ and he jumped down in my arms.”
Caked in mud, snow and ice, Slater brought the cat inside to warm him up.
“I got a shirt I wore the day before and I wrapped him in it. I peeled all of the ice and snow off of his tail and his neck and his face, and I put a cup of water down and he drank 250 millilitres of water in no time,” he said. “All I had for food that he could eat was beef jerky so I gave him Big Chief beef jerky – little pieces I bit and fed him and he ate about half – and then he just laid down and went to sleep.”
Slater took the cat home with him Sunday night. He said the feline slept all the way home in the car to Edmonton and through the night.
“He knew early on who saved him. He wouldn’t leave my side,” Slater said.
“It’s like a bond already. I’ve never met a more affectionate, lovable cat. That’s what makes me think he has an owner out there.”
Slater bathed the cat and on Monday morning, took him to the vet to be checked out. Apart from frostbite to his ears and paws, and being a bit underweight, the cat was in good health.
“His heart is good, his lungs are good,” he said. “For him to survive what he went through, he’s got to have one hell of a good heart.”
Slater, who has three cats of his own, calls the miracle cat Q199 – the number of the train he rolled in on – or Q for short. He thinks Q travelled all the way to Alberta from Manitoba.
“The engine that he was on was isolated and shut off because it ran out of fuel so I’m thinking that he either got on in Winnipeg, when the engine was running and it was warm underneath – because it was just steel, it’s loud, there’s air, it’s a diesel engine – it’s nowhere a pet or anything’s going to hide because it’s scary,” he explained.
“Sixty miles an hour at minus 39 is probably minus 55 to 60 and he went all the way from – for sure Saskatoon to Wainwright and… if I didn’t find him, he wouldn’t have made it to Irma, which was the next stop.”
Q is neutered but doesn’t have a microchip or tattoo. Slater hopes he can find Q’s rightful owner but if not, he’s ready to adopt him, as long as he gets along with his other cats.
“It’s like we’re best friends already. It’s pretty incredible,” he said. “I’m looking forward to another good night’s sleep with my little train cat.”
If his cats don’t socialize well with Q, Slater said there are several people he works with who would love to adopt his train cat.
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