Cat Found Trapped In Patchogue Pool Filter Suffered Severed Spine

PATCHOGUE, NY — A Patchogue woman made an unsettling discovery on Sunday, after she found a cat trapped in her pool filter.

Donna Forman said she discovered the cat around 4 p.m., after coming home from running errands with her grandchildren. She let her dog out into the yard, she said, when her grandson noticed it was acting strange.

Forman walked around the filter.

"Sure enough, there was a little cat head looking right at me," she said. "She looked very hurt."

She then called her friend Karen Hill Maloney, a professional wildlife rescuer, for help.

Maloney said she was prepared for the cat to scratch or bite her. But instead, it let her pick it up.

"The cat let me lift her right out of the box," she said.

The cat had its right ear chipped, Maloney said, signifying that it was a stray that was neutered.

Forman and Maloney were unsure of how long the cat was trapped for, they said. It also could not use its back legs.

"Our best guess is that the cat probably just possibly fell out of a tree, hurt its back and stumbled into the pool, " Maloney said.

After being denied by one clinic and receiving an unsatisfactory assessment from another, Maloney took the cat to her personal veterinarian, who said the cat was paralyzed.

After further assessment on Monday, the veterinarian diagnosed the cat with a severed spinal cord, muscle wasting, and broken paws.

Due to its injuries and age, the cat was euthanized, Maloney said.

John Di Leonardo of Humane Long Island told Patch that while this incident involved a stray, this is a lesson for cat owners to keep their pets inside.

"Every day, countless cats are injured or killed on Long Island streets," he said.

Whether abandoned to the wild or simply let out for a few hours, Di Leonardo said that fee-roaming cats are at high risk of being hit by cars and contracting life-threatening diseases such as feline AIDS, leukemia, and infectious peritonitis.

"In recent years, we've even received reports of cats being shot with arrow and being ensnared by fishing hooks and cruel steel-jawed traps," he said.

Free-roaming cats can also cause harm to the environment, as they are the leading cause of deaths for small mammals and birds, he said.

If cat owners wish to give their cats fresh air, Di Leonardo recommends using an outdoor enclosure to keep both their pets and wildlife safe.

"This is why we need to take care of our cats and keep them inside, said Maloney, "because they do get up to mischief."