12/30/2018
This is a very long post about a cat rescued from a 25 foot deep well. There's no video, but the pictures show a muddy Barley recuperating after the rescue. Happy New Year everyone!
On Sunday morning, 12/23/18 I got a text from a man named Toby saying his cat was stuck at the bottom of a 25 foot well. The cat's name is Barley and he is an indoor cat who snuck outside and didn't come back right away as expected. Toby went looking for him, and as a testament to their close relationship, every time Toby called to Barley he would meow back. By following the meows Toby found Barley at the bottom of an 18" diameter 25 foot deep concrete lined, dry well. We have no idea what the purpose of the hole was, but it is clearly no longer in use. There was a broken concrete lid, cracked in half, next to the hole. The overgrown property is near a main road and showed evidence of squatters/vandalism so we guess that someone snooping around broke or removed the cover at some point.
Barley had been in the hole for about 28 hours when we arrived around 2pm. Toby and his ex wife and her new husband had tried to lower buckets and baskets down to Barley, but he would not get into any of them leading them to believe he was paralyzed or otherwise injured. They had called 911 and animal control who gave them my number.
Toby lives in Mebane just 3 miles from our house and since it was a Sunday afternoon Julie, Sarah Joy and Jed all came to help. We had measured everyone's shoulders before coming and Jed (11 years old) was the only one whose shoulders were less than 18" across (he had about 4 inches to spare). He expressed willingness to go in the hole if needed so I had a kid sized harness and rigging gear along just in case.
When we arrived and shined a spot light down into the hole we saw Barley, a black and white short hair cat about 10-11 pounds lying at the bottom of the hole in sticky orange mud looking up at us. He was not walking or pacing and all 4 paws were tucked under him. I lowered down a bucket with enticing wet food in it, but he did not respond at all to it. Wondering if he was able to walk or at all interested in food, I brought the bucket back up, scooped out the wet food with my hand and dropped in down into the hole. It landed with a splat next to Barley but he did not move or react to it except for flinching when it landed.
We considered lowering Jed into the hole, but there would not have been room for him to bend down to pick up Barley or get him into the cat bag. Even though Barley had his shots we didn't really want Jed to be down in the bottom of an 18 inch hole with Barley if he (Barley) freaked out either.
Before we got there, Toby had located a metal grate from a circular charcoal grill that was the exact size to fit into the hole. The day before, he tried to lower it down to Barley on two ropes, but he couldn't get it under him since Barley wouldn't budge. We decided to rearrange the ropes a bit and re-try the grate idea. We had two A shaped ropes each attached to 2 points on the perimeter of the circle which allowed us to lower the grate vertically. Then once at the bottom of the hole we nudged Barley to one side of the hole with the vertical grate then tried to scoop Barley onto it as the grate fell into the horizontal position. Barley made no effort to get onto the grate as we tried to jam it under him. He never raised up or moved and the position of the "A" shaped ropes impeded us from getting the grate under him.
We realized that if Jed could go down in the hole he might be able to use his toes and feet to coax Barley onto the grate and get the grate level. We set up a rigging system above the hole with a sturdy telescoping A frame aluminum ladder, some slings, pulleys, and my grigri to belay Jed down into the hole. We cleared out the brush around the hole and in a path away from the hole so we could get a few people on the pull line to bring Jed up out of the hole at the right time. Jed donned the harness, a helmet and head lamp, and went few feet down into the hole on a trial basis. Unfortunately, the New Tribe tree climbing harness, which is quite comfortable in a seating position, was very uncomfortable for Jed in the pencil shaped position required by the narrow diameter of the hole. Even with adjusting the harness a few ways Jed was not comfortable going all the way to the bottom of the hole so we had to abandon that plan.
At this point we had been there about 2 hours. We tried raising and then lowering and repositioning the metal grate a few times, but nothing was working and we were growing increasingly alarmed about Barley's lethargy and immobility, although he would always meow back if Toby called to him. Sarah Joy realized that we needed to change the way the ropes were tied on the perimeter of the grate. I think we tried 3 intermediate arrangements before settling on 4 independent ropes tied to the inner perimeter of the grate and electrical-taped to the perimeter so they couldn't slide inward, which would cause the grate to tip.
In the end what worked was getting the grate partially under Barley, lifting Barley as much as we could by pulling up hard on the two ropes that were scooping the grate under him. Then to get the grate the rest of the way under him Toby tied a 7 pound free weight to a 5th line and lowered that down into the hole on the upward facing side of the grate to tap it under Barley the rest of the way. At this point 5 of us were all gathered around the hole, 3 people on the ropes, 1 with the spotlight and 1 with the free wright. Just when we thought it wasn't going to work, Barley miraculously scrambled to the center of the grate, pushing it the rest of the way horizontal, and laid back down.
We decided it best to have one person in charge of all 4 ropes during the ascent and I was nominated. Thankfully Barley did not move much as I brought him up. I tried to get my Go Pro to record the ascent but realized that I didn't have a memory card in the camera. Uggh! Julie suggested we stop the ascent about 3 feet from the top of the hole so Toby could reach down in, grab Barley and then transfer him to a cat carrier. Jed had the carrier ready, Sarah Joy had the grab bag ready, and Julie covering the hole so Barley couldn’t jump out.
As soon as Barley was safely in the carrier, Toby, who is a ~60 year old construction contractor completely broke down in tears of relief and gratitude. That got all of us started and we were all a sniffling and hugging each each other happily and exclaiming.
A moment later we were heading to Toby’s house to release Barley and check on his injuries. To everyone’s surprise as soon as we opened the cat carrier door, Barley ran out of the carrier into an adjacent room of the house and then back through the room where we were to a third room of the house. Apparently he was just fine?!?!?
After gathering our rope and supplies Toby again lost his composure as he thanked us for our help and we all wished each other a Merry Christmas.
This is perhaps the only rescue where the cat was bound to die if we were not successful. The thought of giving up never crossed our minds, although some of us had already realized that failure would mean keeping a death vigil and watching Barley starve or freeze to death over the Christmas holiday.
The whole rescue taught us some important and timely lessons. First – it took all of us and all of our ideas to rescue Barley. Jed was willing to go down into the hole, Sarah Joy’s insights into better rope placement on the grate were essential, Toby located the grill and had the idea to use the free weight to bang the grate into a horizontal position. Julie and I and others took turns on the ropes and holding the spot light throughout the 2.5 hour rescue. No one of us could have done it alone.
We also thought of Barley’s predicament as a Christmas metaphor for all of us. Because of sin we all find ourselves at the bottom of a pit we can’t get out of. Certain death is our lot unless someone above us can rescue us. Jesus Christ is our savior. He is the one who gets us out of the trap and hole of sin if we trust him and come unto him.
