A little ginger cat was hungry, so he let himself be seen by a strange human. But the world isn’t always kind to the homeless stray, no matter what cool color he is.
Instead of food, the yellowish orange tabby got a bullet in his shoulder and a blow dart that nicked his heart and just missed his lungs.
Fortunately for the unlucky Platte County cat, Linda Fabian found him.
Fabian had been watching and feeding the small colony of cats near Wheatland that orange guy belonged to. When she noticed one of the other cats in the colony limping, she worked with Critters Inc.’s Megan Luszczynski to catch it.
But instead of catching the limping cat, Luszczynski and Fabian ended up catching a duo that hang out together all the time, and the hungry orange cat.
The trio of cats may have deemed that quite unlucky, but it’s what ultimately has saved the orange cat’s life.
“We got to looking at the cat in the crate, and we could see that it had a wound on its side,” Fabian said. “So, Megan took all of the cats, three at the time, to her vet in Newcastle.”
At first, the vet thought the wound Luszczynski had noticed was no big deal. It was about the size of a pencil and appeared to already be healing. It seemed like it wasn’t even going to need stitches.
The vet, however, had a gut feeling about this wound and decided to take a quick X-ray, just to make sure the wound wasn’t deeper than it looked.
That’s when Megan and the vet saw something jaw-dropping inside this cat.
There was a large, arrow-shaped piece of metal lodged within the cat’s rib cage, sitting right between its heart and lungs.
“This thing was about 5 inches long,” Fabian said. “And I don’t know how that cat was functioning.”
The X-ray also discovered a bullet lodged in the cat’s shoulder, whether that happened during the same incident or another, it’s impossible to tell.
A yellow-orange tabby stray in Platte County, Wyoming, has earned the name Lucky. Despite long odds, he survived being impaled by a blow dart and shot in the shoulder. (Courtesy Critters Inc.) 
A yellow-orange tabby stray in Platte County, Wyoming, has earned the name Lucky. Despite long odds, he survived being impaled by a blow dart and shot in the shoulder. (Courtesy Critters Inc.) 
A yellow-orange tabby stray in Platte County, Wyoming, has earned the name Lucky. Despite long odds, he survived being impaled by a blow dart and shot in the shoulder. (Courtesy Critters Inc.) 
A yellow-orange tabby stray in Platte County, Wyoming, has earned the name Lucky. Despite long odds, he survived being impaled by a blow dart and shot in the shoulder. (Courtesy Critters Inc.) 
A yellow-orange tabby stray in Platte County, Wyoming, has earned the name Lucky. Despite long odds, he survived being impaled by a blow dart and shot in the shoulder. (Courtesy Critters Inc.)
Extraordinary Will To Live
Even though the arrow had missed its heart and lungs, the cat’s ribs had been broken by the blow dart.
His chances at life were exceedingly slim, the veterinarian told Luszczynski. The surgery to remove the sharp blow dart's arrow would likely kill him.
Even if it didn’t, he was quite likely to die in recovery anyway.
But there was just something about this cat who had already beaten so many odds to live as long as he had, in spite of a 5-inch arrow stuck inside his stomach and a bullet hole in his shoulder.
Luszczynski didn’t want to give up on him. He was just this tiny creature that deserved a little kindness.
So, she decided to give him a shot at life, even if it was expensive and even if it was a very long shot. At least she could say she had tried to value this life, even if the rest of the world didn’t care.
The surgery took an hour and was exceptionally difficult and challenging.
“We had to breathe for him with the equipment while we punctured his diaphragm and entered his chest cavity,” Luszczynski wrote in a Critters Inc. post on Facebook. “We had to make two separate incisions, one on his underside and another on the outside of his ribs, in order to be able to manipulate this metal into a position where we could get ahold of it and pull it out.”
It was so tricky because the wrong move could further damage the cat’s internal organs, lessening its slim chances even further.
In all, the surgery took an hour of careful labor.
“We got him sewed up immediately and into the warmer to help him recover his temperature and consciousness,” Luszczynski wrote. “Likely only the second time in his life that he’s been touched by human hands in any sort of kind way.”
The bullet, meanwhile, was too dangerous to remove, so it was left behind, a wound that will probably always cause a little pain for the cat and may lead to early arthritis.
“Much to our surprise, this guy not only pulled through, but he was sitting up wanting to eat by the time we left the clinic,” Luszczynski said. “He will, of course, stay here with us at Critters Inc for recovery. … He is not out of the woods yet, but his will to live is extraordinary.”
A yellow-orange tabby stray in Platte County, Wyoming, has earned the name Lucky. Despite long odds, he survived being impaled by a blow dart and shot in the shoulder. (Courtesy Critters Inc.) 
A yellow-orange tabby stray in Platte County, Wyoming, has earned the name Lucky. Despite long odds, he survived being impaled by a blow dart and shot in the shoulder. (Courtesy Critters Inc.) 
A yellow-orange tabby stray in Platte County, Wyoming, has earned the name Lucky. Despite long odds, he survived being impaled by a blow dart and shot in the shoulder. (Courtesy Critters Inc.) 
A yellow-orange tabby stray in Platte County, Wyoming, has earned the name Lucky. Despite long odds, he survived being impaled by a blow dart and shot in the shoulder. (Courtesy Critters Inc.) 
A yellow-orange tabby stray in Platte County, Wyoming, has earned the name Lucky. Despite long odds, he survived being impaled by a blow dart and shot in the shoulder. (Courtesy Critters Inc.)
All Creatures
Now named Lucky, the cat is still in recovery mode a month later, Fabian said.
While normally Luszczynski would return the cat to his colony, Fabian said in this case she hopes to socialize the cat enough to find him a permanent and safe home, one where he can experience a little more kindness from the world than he has to date.
“The last time I spoke to her, she said he’s just kind of pissed off,” Fabian said. “She said he just hisses and growls and he eats and he’s getting exercise, but he isn’t nice. He may never be nice.”
Luszczynski indicated in her Facebook post that instances of cruelty to animals aren’t uncommon, though this one was on a new level.
Fabian, meanwhile, reported the incident to police, but was told there’s not much that can be done without knowing for sure who the culprit is.
“You’d be shocked how many people said to me, ‘Oh it’s probably kids,’” she said. “But I got a tip about who it might be, and it’s not kids.”
The tip involved several blow darts that turned up in a neighbor’s tires, but the person suspected of shooting those darts has since moved on, leaving the area and the community, Fabian said.
“The police were gracious, and two officers came to my building and talked to me and said they’d file a report,” Fabian said. “And I told them that someone had given me a name, but they didn’t ask for it, since (the person) had moved.”
The incident has Fabian thinking about kindness in the world and how there’s just not enough of it.
“We’re all here just trying to survive,” she said. “Why would you want to be cruel to someone or anything?”
Fabian hopes someone kind will take Lucky in, giving him a home where he doesn’t have to keep his head down just in case he’s about to get shot with another blow dart.
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
