Hero Cat Saves Elderly Woman Who Had Fallen Down a Ravine

A  little black cat named Piran from Cornwall, England is being hailed a hero after helping save his elderly human. Local authorities had been searching for the 83-year-old woman who was reported missing from her home. The woman’s neighbour, Tamar Longmuir, 38, had been helping search crews when she noticed the cat frantically meowing and pacing nearby, trying to bring her attention to the corner of a large maize field near the woman’s home.

“The cat is very attached to her, and he was going back and forth in the gateway and meowing, so I decided to go and search the maize field,” Longmuir told Sky News. 

It was a good thing that Longmuir listened to Piran. With the cat leading the way, Longmuir was able to quickly locate her neighbour, who had fallen down a steep ravine.

“Just as I was going to go off the path and start going through the crop, I heard a very faint response to my calling. I then quickly realized my neighbour was down the 70-foot ravine,” she told Sky News. “She had gone through the barbed wire and was laying in the stream—we think she had been in there for hours.”

Piran, the hero cat.

She “had fallen approximately 70 feet down a very steep embankment, with incredibly difficult access and uneven terrain,” the Bodmin Police department noted in a Facebook post.

“Without the cat waiting at the gate to that field, it could have been hours later that I or anyone else would have checked there,” Longmuir said.

The Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service, a specialist water rescue team, Cornwall Air Ambulance, and the South Western Ambulance Service were all involved in the search and rescue efforts and helped hoist the elderly woman out of the ravine on a stretcher. She was then transferred to a hospital via air transport and remains in stable condition.

Despite the traumatic event, “she is in good spirits and is being well looked after,” said the Bodmin Police in an update.

According to Longmuir, Piran has received lots of treats for his heroic efforts.—Yaunna Sommersby