Firefighters Rescue Founding Father – ‘Thomas Jefferson’ the cat – on Election Day

By Margo Gothelf 2 min read

A cat got quite the scare on Election Day after he fell into a drainpipe.

The cat, named after Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, was found in a drainpipe in Nashville, Tennessee after a neighbor heard meowing coming from an unusual place.

According to the neighbor, he heard the cat’s cries early on in the morning and then later again in the afternoon.

“He realized he probably shouldn’t be hearing the cat in the same area, and it wasn’t sounding good,” said spokesperson Brian Haas, with the Nashville Fire Department.

When the firefighters arrived to the scene, they found the cat “at the bottom of a third floor gutter that evacuated into an underground drainpipe,” explained Inside Edition.

He climbed into the third-world rain gutter, fell three stories and got stuck here pic.twitter.com/RvCRCLHcWQ

— Nashville Fire Dept (@NashvilleFD) November 8, 2016

To keep the concerned public updated about Thomas Jefferson, the fire department live tweeted the rescue using #drainpipekitty.

The firefighters were able to come up with a rescue plan and dug through the pipes until the cat was safe and sound.

“He was miserable, tired and wet,” said Hass, who was at the rescue scene. “He looked like he had a rough morning.”

#DRAINPIPEKITTY is free!!! pic.twitter.com/ESEQxOO5nl

— Nashville Fire Dept (@NashvilleFD) November 8, 2016

Luckily, Thomas Jefferson’s owner showed up to the rescue scene as soon as he was out of the gutter.

“He ignored all of us, grabbed the cat, and just goes, ‘What were you thinking?’” Hass said. “[The cat]’s owner brought him inside, warmed him up, dried him off, and he perked up relatively quickly.”