A kitten's cries echoed up from inside a narrow drain at a Jurupa Valley mobile home park early Sunday. Officer Christopher Peck of Riverside County Animal Services came to the rescue.
By the time he arrived early Sunday, someone else had already lowered a rope into the drain. It was too narrow for Peck's arm, and too dark for him to get a good look inside, according to statement writen by John Welsh, an animal services spokesman.
Peck could only hear its cries.
Peck began pulling up the rope, hoping the kitten would grab it.
"Wow, I have it," Peck said, according to the statement. "She had clamped her teeth on the end of the rope."
And out came a 2-month-old, female short-haired kitten.
Peck rushed the kitten to a local animal shelter. The little creature was almost dead by the time they arrived.
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The kitten was so cold that Eileen Sanders, the supervising registered veterinary technician, could not get an exact reading on her temperature, the statement said.
"She was incapable of movement when she came in," Sanders said. "She felt like refrigerated meat in my hands."
Sanders took some life-saving measures and the kitten soon livened up.
"Now I can't believe how great she's doing," Sanders said, according to the statement. "She is eating and is alert. Pretty much a miracle."
She and others at the shelter came up with a nickname for the kitten.
"'Destiny,'" the statement said, "as an homage to the Destiny's Child Song, 'Survivor.'"
