During a blizzard in Saskatchewan this week, two Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officers saved the life of a tiny orange kitten who was nearly frozen to death.
Cpl. Sean Chiddenton was on patrol when he noticed something odd in the middle of the road.
“I saw something on the road at the last second and swerved around it,” he wrote on the Saskatchewan RCMP Facebook page. “I thought it was a chunk of ice that had fallen off a semi at first, but then thought it looked like an animal.”
Behind him drove Cst. Ryan Oram who didn’t see the object in time to move, but amazingly, it passed under his car, untouched. He, too, thought it might be an animal, and decided to pull over to make sure it was unharmed.
“[Oram] backed up and the partially-frozen lump stood up and started walking towards him,” Chiddenton recalled in the post. “It was a small orange kitten nearly frozen.”
They surmised that the ginger kitty was a stray who had crawled into the underbelly of a vehicle for shelter in the storm. Luckily, traffic was slow in the inclement weather, so when the kitten fell or jumped out of his hiding place, the fall didn’t cause any injury. However, it was so cold, the baby’s life was still in danger.
“He wasn’t moving very much, but was meowing non-stop,” the post reads. “Cst. O picked him up and put him in his truck and we dropped him off at the veterinary clinic. I checked in later to see what happened and was happy to see the little guy was alive and alert and meowing away!”
In a story by Global News, Dr. Catherine Colodey, one of the veterinarians who treated the kitten at Prairie Animal Health Centre, explained the the kitten was “nearly frozen solid.”
“We actually couldn’t even get a body temperature to register for him until about 45 minutes of working to try and get his body temperature to increase,” she continued in the story. “He was obviously very hypothermic and very frostbitten.”
After some warm baths and meals, the frigid kitten began to “thaw,” making miraculous progress.
“Then his attitude and personality started coming back and it was just very rewarding for us for sure and even more so for the kitten,” Colodey told Global News. The vet even described him to be “like a lion.”
The fluffy ginger kitten is thought to be between 4 and 5 months old and has been given the name Ambrose. His frostbitten tail may have to be amputated, but otherwise, he’s a happy, healthy kitty!
In addition to a new lease on life, little Ambrose has found a new forever home with one of the vets at the clinic.
“…such a quick recovery to is always surprising sometimes but it makes for a very happy story in the end,” said Colodey.
Ambrose’s new forever family shared this photo on Facebook with the caption reading, “Hey Everyone-we adopted the kitten and he is home snuggling in my daughter’s arms. He’s got her wrapped around his furry little finger! His name is Ambrose, and here he is.”
We’re so happy this ginger cutie got his second chance! Thanks to Cpl. Sean Chiddenton, Cst. Ryan Oram, and the vet staff who refused to give up on this beautiful little life.
(h/t: Global News)