Melton firefighters '˜think outside the box' to rescue trapped cat

A crew from the Melton fire station attended the property on Staveley Road because of increasing concerns for beloved pet Tom’s welfare.

He was trapped between an extension to a house and an outbuilding and there seemed no way he could escape.

Scott Smith, the incident commander for Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service, said he and his colleagues had to ‘think outside the box’ when they arrived at the scene at 9.39pm on Wednesday.

He said: “He was about 10 foot down in between four brick walls and the gap was about 12 inches.

“Tom, unfortunately, wasn’t wearing a collar so we were unable to get him with our reach pole.”

One of the firefighters on the call - Nigel Grant - is a keen angler and it was decided that his landing net might come in useful.

“Nigel was driven from the incident by the home owner to his home address and arrived back 10 minutes later with the net,” said Scott.

“We were then able to use our reach pole to guide Tom into the net and pull him to safety.”

He added: “The owner of the property has said they are going to put some netting over the void to stop anything like this happening again.

“Tom enjoyed a nice big bowl of Whiskers at the end of his ordeal.”