Calling the fire department to rescue a cat from a tree is cliché enough, but a bunch of rookie firefighters on their first official call? Even the hackiest sitcom writer would call that contrived.
That's what happened in Evansville on Sunday. Evansville Fire and EMS Capt. Dan Coursen and a group of trainees dropped what they were doing to help rescue a cat from a tree it had curiously climbed.
"It's the first time I've ever gotten a cat out of a tree in 18 years," Coursen told Cowboy State Daily. "We've had several of those calls, but it's the first time I've ever had to go do it."
To The Rescue
Coursen and two other Evansville firefighters were training four rookies on Sunday when they got a call from the Evansville Police Department. Someone spotted a cat that had climbed a tree and gotten stuck, and it had apparently been stuck there for at least a day.
"We didn't need all the guys, but everybody jumped on the trucks with us," Coursen said. "The four guys we're bringing on are going through training, so they had to be a part of that.
The rescue was straightforward enough. The gray-and-white cat was about 30 feet up in the tree, so all that was needed was a 40-foot ladder and one firefighter to climb up and pluck the caterwauling cat from its perch.
If the cat had an owner, they weren't at the base of the tree. Coursen said they let the cat go on its own recognizance.
"He was right there next to a trailer, and we assumed that he belonged to that trailer, so he stayed there," he said.
For the four new recruits, responding to a cat in a tree as their first call with Evansville Fire and EMS was surreal.
"It was just a service call to get a cat out of a tree, but they were very excited to get a chance to use some of their skills that they've been practicing on," Coursen said. "It was a first for all of us."
Who You Gonna Call?
Curiosity doesn't kill all cats, but it can get them stuck in precarious places. Whenever there's a scaredy cat afraid of heights, the rescuer depends on the situation.
When a cat was stuck atop a power pole in Cody, the Park County Sheriff's Office reached out to Rocky Mountain Power to conduct the rescue.
"The Park County Sheriff's Department called another lineman that works for us and said that there's a cat on a pole," electric lineman Jeff Matthews told Cowboy State Daily in November 2024. "He asked me if I wanted to go see if I could help them out, and I said that wouldn't be a problem."
When power poles are involved, it's best to have someone who knows the hazards and has the equipment to save the cat and keep themselves safe while doing it. It's a lot more dangerous and potentially complex than a tree.
"That's the only time I've ever had to rescue a cat in over 10 years," Matthews said. "Sometimes, this job gets interesting."
Fewer Complexities
Mike Thompson, Evansville's chief of police, said his department received the call about the cat but lacked the equipment and expertise to conduct a safe and efficient rescue.
"Police officers don't run around with ladders and ropes to climb trees," he said. "We have an excellent working relationship with the fire department, and we're all about community service."
Thompson said one of the benefits of working in a small town is that first responders have "more agility and latitude to work with each other" when addressing public needs. Without the complexities of big communities and agencies, sometimes it's easier to get things done.
"It's all about taking care of the community," he said. "Evansville has some of the best first responders in the state because of the unity between all the first responders to tackle any job that is dispatched, working together in service for our community."
Getting a cat out of a tree is far from a life-and-death scenario, but every call can be an opportunity to collaborate and learn to work better together. Everyone seemed a bit tickled by the wholesomeness of this incident.
"It was just a goodwill, community service call, nothing too crazy, but everyone was pretty excited about it," Coursen said.
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
