A Leeds cleaner was overjoyed after her cat survived a fall from seventh floor flat - but has been plunged into £5,000 worth of debt with vet bills which has been "stressful".
Carol Swanson, 56, has spoken about her black and white kitten’s miraculous survival after it fell about 100ft from the tower block in Burmantofts. Sox, one, survived to live another day after he was found curled up by the back entrance with shattered paws.
Carol and her partner Christopher Noad, 42, were gobsmacked to find him there on Monday night, October 24, after they’d turned their flat in Shakespeare Grange, on Shakespeare Approach, upside down for four hours in a bid to find him.
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The curious young cat had pushed the window open, fallen all the way down and then in agony had dragged himself all the way around to the back of the building - which was a couple of hundred metres away - where he lay waiting for his owners to find him.
Carol said: “I was so upset and terrified when we realised he wasn’t in the flat. I was distraught. Oh my god, I was so relieved when we found him. I thought we’d never get him back, especially alive!”
Christopher, who works as a housing officer for Leeds City Council, was the one who discovered him. He said: “He was just outside the flat doors, waiting to come in. It was a bit of a shock, we weren’t expecting him to be alive.
“I was so happy when I saw him. I just picked him up when I got him straight in. He’s only a year old and from where he’s fallen is quite a distance, how he’s managed to survive and get back around…I mean must have crawled on his belly, or however he’s done it, to get back around to the main doors, sit there and wait. The fact he’s done that, well, wow!”
Carol’s family, daughter Sarah and son who did not want to be named, were all at the flat in a bid to find the cat and rushed him to Holly House Vets in Moortown Corner. Days later he underwent an operation called a spider external fixation to treat his shattered paws, which involved lacing wires into his paws.
To be able to afford the hefty £5,000 surgery, Carol had to max out the payments on her credit card. Carol said: “I’ve had to pay it on my visa card, it has been stressful.
“We’re not poor but we’re not rich people but you’d pay it for anyone in your family and he’s part of the family, so you’d do anything for them. It’s gone better than I thought to be honest, there are some nice caring people out there.
“Sox coming home has been stressful as he’s got to his cone on and he’s not been sleeping. I haven’t been sleeping for two nights ever since he came home as he won’t keep it on. I’ve had to keep watching him every two minutes.”
It will be three months until Sox can get the wires removed. Carol is asking anyone who can help pay towards the surgery to donate money to her Go Fund Me, they’ve set a target of £1,000 to help them towards the payments.
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