'MOST HEARTWARMING THING'
Tow truck driver, rescuers unite to save donkey
Employees of Garrett's Towing & Recovery assist Miss Kitty on April 26 while she gets used to being steady on her feet.
Rescue workers hoist 30-year-old Miss Kitty, a Thomasville donkey, from 4 feet of mud on Friday night, April 24.
Donkeys Miss Kitty and John.
Garrett Scarlette offers gentle lift to a recuperating Miss Kitty as the donkey regains her strength.
It took a community and a determined tow truck driver to get Miss Kitty the donkey back on her hooves. The 30-year-old donkey, with a girlish figure of about 600700 pounds, fell through the drought-dried floor of a 2-acre pond at The C Ranch, her Thomasville home, on April 24.
Miss Kitty likely became stuck in late afternoon and would remain that way for about six hours, her owner estimated.
She sank nearly 4 feet into a tight vacuum of mud — a substance like chocolate pudding that lay just below a crust of dry soil, said her owner, Cindy Everhart Collins, who adopted the gentle donkey about two years ago from an aging Hillsborough farmer.
Stuck in the mud
Cindy realized something was wrong on Friday after she did a routine head count at the duplex stalls where Miss Kitty dwells beside her longtime sweetheart, gray donkey John Wellborn.
At about 4 p.m., Cindy said she saw through her house window that John Wellborn was settled in his stall.
Cindy couldn't see Kitty and decided the donkey was likely in the stall corner, hidden from view.
At around 6 p.m., her husband, Ben, came home from an 11-hour workday. The pair decided to go out for dinner. "That's when my instinct kicked in," Cindy said. "I told Ben, 'I want to lay eyes on Miss Kitty before we go.'"
Kitty was not in her stall.
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The couple jumped in their Toyota 4Runner and began combing the pasture for Miss Kitty. The couple called Cindy's sister, Denise Barnes, who lives next door and asked for her help.
As 7 p.m. approached, Ben and Denise walked the pasture while Cindy drove around, her stomach sinking. "Then Ben said, 'I found her!'" Cindy said.
Ben rushed to the house, grabbed a shovel and tried to dig Miss Kitty from the quagmire.
"He said, 'The more I dig, the more water I'm getting,'" Cindy said. "Kitty's a big girl, and she was up to her tummy in that mud."
Time for backup
It was time to call the Thomasville Fire & Rescue team, Denise Barnes said.
Rescuers from Thomasville Fire & Rescue and the Thomasville Police Department came to the ranch, along with a cadre of specialists from the Piedmont Emergency Animal Response Team. This Forsyth County-based nonprofit specializes in large-animal rescue, Cindy said.
The group tried several strategies for extracting Miss Kitty. Police officers in crisp uniforms waded waist-deep in mud to help the fire and rescue workers. Friends from every direction emerged to offer help and prayer, Cindy said.
"I looked around, and there must have been 25 people there," she said. "The kindness and the graciousness and the patience this group had ... and how they were always evaluating and planning what to do next.''
Cindy added, "They were excited to help. There was an enthusiasm, a team effort between two or three different departments that worked together and communicated beautifully, brainstormed and used critical thinking and coordination to save Miss Kitty," Cindy said, growing emotional. "It's the most heartwarming thing that's ever happened to me in my life."
Tow truck to the rescue
Realizing fire and rescue workers didn't have the right equipment to hoist Miss Kitty, a firefighter dialed up Garrett Scarlette, 31, the operations manager of Garrett's Towing & Recovery in Thomasville.
Scarlette arrived at about 9:30 p.m.
"We backed the tow truck in and lifted her up using straps the firefighters had already put underneath her," he said.
The donkey was freed just after midnight, Cindy said.
"She seemed OK, but I'm sure she was scared and anxious. You could tell she had some different emotions going on. I'd be that way, too, with 20 strangers standing around," said Scarlette, who said he has helped with large animal rescues before in his role as a volunteer firefighter.
"It was such a good feeling once we seen Kitty up and walking," said Scarlette, who returned to the ranch Sunday through Tuesday to help lift an exhausted Miss Kitty to her feet for daily exercise.
"We were very honored being a part of that," he said. "The fact that we were the ones that received the call puts that animal in a special place in your heart. It's a live animal, with feelings and a heart and a heartbeat. We've truly made a new four-legged friend over the weekend."
Extraction
Pulling Miss Kitty from the mud was a tedious process, Scarlette explained. And once she was upright, he kept the harnesses in place beneath her legs in case they buckled.
"The vet checked her vitals, and we were all massaging Kitty's legs to get the blood flowing," he said.
On Saturday night, veterinarian Elissa Cole from Lexington pumped a gallon of electrolytes into the donkey's stomach through a nasogastric tube as the donkey lay in soft grass.
Cindy and Ben set alarms and, with the help of Barnes, rolled Miss Kitty every four hours from one side to the other to prevent hip injury and keep her bowels active.
On Sunday, Scarlette was back to assist with lifting Miss Kitty. "I held her up for an hour, being there with support with the straps real loose until blood got into her legs real good and until the owners felt like her legs were well-planted."
Devoted donkeys
Helping humans have come and gone through stall doors this week, but one stalwart gent — Kitty's companion, donkey John Wellborn— won't leave Miss Kitty's side, Cindy said.
"He's standing right here beside her outside of her little stall. They are such a pair," Cindy said, tickled by the fact that John is in his early 20s. "So I guess Kitty must be a cougar!"
Miss Kitty's prognosis is good, and the Collins family is grateful.
"We couldn't have done this without our community," Cindy said. "It was just an incredible experience."
sspear@rockinghamnow.com 336-349-4331, ext. 6140 @spearsusie_RCN
