FL Woman Crawls Through Sewage To Save Kitten Trapped For 6 Days

DELRAY BEACH, FL — A South Florida animal rescuer went above and beyond Friday when she shimmied through a storm drain in Delray Beach to rescue a scared six-week-old kitten trapped in the pipe for days.

Lindsey Bembli, a vet tech, first heard the kitten’s tiny meows for help coming from the drain on July 24 and called the fire department for assistance, she shared in a GoFundMe fundraiser for the cat’s care. First responders climbed into the pipe but couldn’t find the kitten.

After that, she left him food and tried various traps — “everything we could think of” — to capture the kitten, she told CBS 12 News.

When that didn’t work, she called in her friend, Liz Jones, experienced animal rescuer and founder of the Fort Lauderdale-based group Operation Liberation, to help Friday. At that point, the kitten had been in the drain for six days.

“I wiggled my way through 230 (feet) of stanky, wet, shoulder-width sewer drainpipe and successfully retrieved our fearful friend,” Jones posted on her Facebook page.

And it wasn’t an easy feat, as “the ick factor only increased as you got further into the sewer drain,” she told CBS. “It got a little wet. His feces were down there. There were cockroaches, spiders, some toad friends, and it got a little moist and gross at the end.”

Jones shared videos from the daring rescue to social media.

In one video, as she’s wearing a headlight and “Army crawling” through the pipe, she said, “It’s getting more narrow as I continue to go in.”

She added, “My forearms are killing me because there’s a lot of sediment…it’s getting painful. But I can see him, and I can see the end. I can see him. I can see his little eyes. He’s basically halfway between me and the other drain opening.”

Jones, in the video, said they had another volunteer on the other side of the drain opening ready to grab the kitten if he ran. But she managed to grab him herself and crawled the rest of the way out while holding him.

Ultimately, she crawled nearly 300 feet through a 24-inch wide sewer drain that was about eight-feet underground, Bembli said.

“It’s not my first time being in a storm drain to rescue animals and it probably won’t be my last,” Jones told CBS.

They brought the kitten, named Donatello, to Pet Emergency and Referral Center in West Palm Beach for a check-up. There, he had his blood drawn for testing and received IV antibiotics and fluids, she shared on Facebook.

After his discharge, Jones brought him home to care for him while he recovered.

In another post, she said Donatello was “a persnickety little man” who refused to eat when she brought him home. It wasn’t long before he “perked up quit a bit and just feasted like a bougie boy from (her) hand,” she said. “I can tell he finally feels safe.”

Once he’s recovered, he’ll be neutered and available for adoption, Bembli shared on GoFundMe.

His vet bills cost about $800 so far and are expected to increase, she added. All funds raised beyond what is needed for his medical care will be used to help Operation Liberation build a shelter facility in Fort Lauderdale.