A pet owner clambered into an eight-metre-deep well to rescue her cat after it fell in – but the rescue mission backfired when she couldn’t get out herself.
An emergency crew was called after the woman found herself in a sticky situation in the South Australian town of Gawler.
The cat, named Comet, had been missing for days before his family realised he was inside the well at the Para Para Mansion.
After trying ‘all day’ to retrieve him, his owner asked her relatives to lower her into the well using a harness on Monday.
Her mum, Laurel, told ABC: ‘This morning, my daughter said “rig me up, I’m going to go down” — bless her, she’s braver than I am.’
Comet was raised out of the hole inside a shopping bag, but it then hit the group that they had a bigger problem on their hands.
‘She goes down, gets the cat — he’s fine, the little sod — and then we had issues getting her up’, said Laurel.
She tried to use an old rope ladder that was down the well to get out, but it snapped.
After running out of options, the family called ‘heroic’ emergency services around 9.30am. Workers were sent to the rescue around 90 minutes later.
MFS Commander Stuart Dawes said a ‘slow, safe and steady rescue’ was staged ‘using our specialist tech rescue equipment’.
Laurel says she didn’t like calling them as ‘other people are in greater need’, but believed they ‘didn’t have a choice’.
Thankfully, her daughter is safe and well – albeit, ‘embarrassed by the attention’.
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