Wayward kitten fine after rescue from Southern State
"Peek-a-Boo" may look like she'd rather be anywhere else but in the grip of a rescuer Monday after she was discovered frolicking on the Southern State Parkway, but she is now safe and being cared for by one of them.
. Credit: John Debacker
A kitten spotted frolicking on the median of the Southern State Parkway this week was rescued by a pair of cat lovers and two New York State troopers — with all nine feline lives still intact.
Corinne Gillingham, of Merrick, was driving home from her job in Queens late Monday afternoon when she spotted the big-eyed gray-and-white kitten on the median near Exit 21 while rush hour traffic rumbled by in both directions.
Gillingham, a volunteer with Long Island Cats and Kittens Solutions (LICKS), a feline rescue group, said the female carefree kitty was playing between the yellow highway line and weeds on the narrow median, about 12 inches from traffic.
“It didn’t understand what was going on," she said, "but it was also smart enough not to go into traffic.”
Gillingham called LICKS vice president John Debacker of Bellmore, who rushed to the scene to help with the rescue. Gillingham got off the Southern State and returned to the spot where she had first seen the kitten, pulling over to the side of the road with her hazard lights blinking.
Gillingham said someone may have dumped the kitten on the median because it would be difficult for a cat that size to cross the highway without injury. There was no evidence of a mother cat or other kittens, she said.
Two state troopers, Michelle Keenan and Matthew Battaglia, pulled up behind Gillingham’s car and asked why she had stopped on the Southern State. When Gillingham told them she was looking for a kitten, the troopers used their cars to block one lane of traffic to facilitate the search.
“The troopers were amazing,” she said. “They went right into action and they didn’t give up.”
The rescuers struggled to locate the kitten in the weeds but Debacker eventually coaxed it out of hiding by playing a YouTube video of meowing cats on his phone.
Gillingham is fostering the highway kitty, named “Peek-a-Boo,” a tribute to the way she was able to play while avoiding passing vehicles on the busy parkway.
The kitten was taken to a veterinarian who deemed it dehydrated but in otherwise good health. The one-pound, three-ouce kitty is 4 to 6 weeks old, Gillingham said.
“I feel like the hand of God was with us, like somebody was guiding this situation,” Gillingham said. “This was a miracle.”
