Kristine Malone was standing on a train platform in New York City when she heard a desperate cry echo from the tracks below.
She scanned the rails and gravel, but didn’t see anything at first. Then, her eyes narrowed in on a small clump of orange fur pressed against a stone wall.
The small clump of fur looked up at her and let out another impassioned yelp.
Malone knew that time was of the essence, so she made an emergency post on social media looking for help. That’s when John Debacker, vice president of Long Island Cat/Kitten Solution, Inc., stepped in.
He knew the rescue would be difficult, but as soon as Debacker got to the train station, he ran into more obstacles than he’d initially anticipated.
“It was tricky getting to the kitten because he was down in the tracks,” Debacker told The Dodo. “We were trying to figure out how to get to the kitten from street level, but we couldn’t do that without putting ourselves in danger.”
Hoping for safe access to the tracks, Debacker quickly found two Metro-North police officers and told them about the kitten.
“They were animal lovers, too,” Debacker said. “They shut off the power and escorted us onto the tracks.”
Once he was on the train tracks, Debacker and the rescue team inched as close to the kitten as they could without scaring him away, then swiftly scooped him up with a rescue net.
Finally, the kitten was safe.
As a full-time animal rescuer, Debacker has had a lot of experience with stray kittens, and he could instantly tell that this little orange cat was different.
“He was very scared, but I’ve gotten many feral kittens, and he’s definitely not like one of those typical feral cats,” Debacker said. “He was really sweet almost instantly.”
Debacker named the kitten Metro, then took him to a local shelter called Last Hope, Inc. for temporary housing.
A few weeks later, Kristine Malone, the woman who initially heard Metro crying on the train tracks, visited the kitten at Last Hope and decided to officially adopt him.
Metro is now living his best life with Malone and her daughter, in an apartment not too far from the tracks where he was initially found.
It’s impossible to know what Metro’s life was like before he found himself stuck on the train tracks, but one thing’s for certain: He’s finally right where he belongs.
“[Malone] and her daughter, Destiny, sing Metro’s praises,” Last Hope, Inc. wrote in a Facebook post, “and Metro is thoroughly enjoying his new life in his new home … like a feline fairy tale.”