Jezebel in Trouble

Details

It was early on a Wednesday afternoon when I received a text message from Leah in Oxford MS. One of her kitties, Jezebel, had been stuck in a tree since that morning, could I help? I was unable to go that afternoon, but said that I would drive up the next day if Jezebel was still in the tree.

The following morning I contacted Leah and Jezebel had not come down, despite there being a period of heavy overnight rain. I arranged to be there later that afternoon. On arrival, I was met by Leah and Malcom (Leah's hubby). The tree was in the front yard, and Jezebel was hanging out at 45 feet. I tried hitting a union at 50 feet with my throwbag launcher, but the line become tangled in some limbs. Untangling it required jerking some limbs, and this caused Jezebel to come down to about 35 feet. On the next throwbag try I hit a union about 5 feet below Jezebel -- not ideal, but workable.

Jezebel was calm as I climbed up to her. When I reached the tie-in point, I was still out of grabbing distance and there was no limb that I could stand on to reach her. I initially tried using a webbing loop on my tie-in union to create a step-up, but as I started to pull myself up the noise created disturbed Jezebel, so I backed off. I then tried throwing a lanyard over a limb that was opposite Jezebel, and she tolerated this. I used the lanyard to pull myself even with Jezebel, gave a few scritches, and then easily nabbed her. Back on the ground, Leah took charge of Jezebel and brought her inside for food and water. The post rescue picture by Leah shows Jezebel recuperating from her adventure.