Piran the cat saved the life of his 83-year-old owner by meowing loudly and alerting the emergency services to the whereabouts of the injured woman.
As reported by Cornwall Live, The elderly woman who lived alone on her farm in Cornwall, England with her cat Piran had taken a tumble down a ravine on the outskirts of her property.
A terrible fall
The woman lay injured for hours obscured by overgrowth but she was not alone, her beloved cat Piran stayed at the top of the ravine and cried out for help.
It is believed that without the cat’s assistance in alerting people to the elderly woman’s plight then she could have succumbed to the injuries that she sustained from her terrible fall.
Piran raises the alarm
The woman was well-known in the small town of Bodmin, Cornwell where she had resided all of her life, so when she failed to appear for her usual daily walk around the town, people became concerned.
The woman’s neighbor Tamar Longmuir was the first to begin a search for the missing pensioner, she looked all over the woman’s vast property but could not find a sign of her anywhere.
Longmuir was about to abandon her search of the woman’s farm and look elsewhere when she heard the distant pleading meows of a cat in distress.
An incredible rescue
The concerned neighbor followed the sound and found a distressed Piran meowing and pacing in the field where the accident had occurred, Tamar Longmuir described the scene, saying:
“The cat is very attached to her, and he was going back and forth in the gateway and meowing, so I decided to go and search the maize field.”
Looking over the edge of the steep embankment, Longmuir saw the terrible sight of her elderly neighbor lying prone at the bottom of the ravine.
Longmuir called the emergency services who sped to the scene, they safely hoisted the injured woman from the bottom of the ravine and brought her to the local hospital.
Miraculous survival
The Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service completed the daring rescue and they were amazed at the woman’s miraculous survival after having fallen from such a great height, one of the emergency responders explained:
“The elderly female had fallen approximately 70ft down a very steep embankment, with incredibly difficult access and uneven terrain.”
The Bodmin Police department also made a statement, posting on their Facebook page:
“This afternoon, officers from Bodmin were tasked to conduct a search for a missing 83-year-old female. The female was located by a member of the public who had spotted the female’s cat, meowing in the corner of a large maize field near to her home address.”
Piran the hero
Doctors at the hospital where the woman was treated, confirmed that she had been found in the nick of time and shared that her condition would have been much worse if she had spent any longer lying at the bottom of the ravine.
Thankfully, the injured woman made a full recovery and was able to return home to Piran on the farm, where her neighbors kept a close eye on her and made sure she had everything she needed.
The heroic Piran was nominated for The People’s Pet’s Awards’ ‘Hero Cat’ accolade and the entire community has rallied around the black cat and his owner, proclaiming him to be their ‘little lifesaver.’
Tamar Longmuir shared her belief that if Piran hadn’t been there, then it could have been a tragedy, saying:
“Without the cat waiting at the gate to that field, it could have been hours later that I or anyone else would have checked in there.”