When the family dogs were let out one afternoon, Alice, a tabby cat in Buffalo, New York, snuck out with them. She climbed up a tree --- a very tall tree --- and then became too afraid to come down. Alice's owner, Jessica Williams, looked around for her outside for awhile before spotting the little cat high up in the branches, too high for Williams to reach her. In desperation, Williams began calling around for help, but when a hero arrived to save the day, it wasn't who anyone thought it would be!
Williams, along with her boyfriend, Daniel Pilarski, and his family, tried everything they could think of to coax Alice down. They left food at the bottom of the tree, but still, the cat wouldn't budge. So they tried to find someone to help them. "We have a fire department really close to our house and we went there twice, but no one answered. We also called them, the SPCA, Animal Control, everyone we could think of," Williams said.
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For nine days, Alice stayed in the tree, and for nine days, Williams tried to find help but to no avail. Finally, in desperation, Pilarski's mother, Tammy Hanna, reached out on Facebook to see if anyone could think of some way to get to Alice. Thankfully, a friend, Tristan Lambright, saw Hanna's plea and came to the rescue.
Lambright, an arborist in training, already earned some local fame during a Buffalo Bills football game, but this time he captured the attention of the locals with his compassion and kindness.
“I noticed a post on my Facebook feed, these people had a cat stuck up in a tree for over a week and no one has helped them. The fire department and the city didn’t help, and I think tree service people were asking for $100 to $400 to get the cat down. I have been apprenticing to be an arborist so I am already comfortable with climbing trees and I like helping people," said Lambright.
It was an easy step to take from climbing trees to take them down to just climbing up a bit and saving a family's beloved pet. All I needed was a harness, ladder, backpack, and some treats," Lambright explained.
So in freezing cold temperatures, Lambright climbed up a ladder and coaxed Alice to him. Then he carefully brought the cat down to the ground, where Alice immediately began purring up a storm. “The cat was up there through rain and snow. If no one helped, that poor cat may have died up there or fallen down and died,” said Lambright.
As far as Williams is concerned, Lambright is a hero. “He was our angel today as Alice had been in the tree for nine days and probably couldn’t have survived much longer. Much love to Tristan for representing the City of Good Neighbors," Williams said.
Thanks to Lambright's generous actions, Alice is home safe and sound. Watch the video of Alice's rescue, and then share this incredible story with your friends and family on Facebook.
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