Community Corner

Cat Rescued After Being Stuck in Tree for 4 Days

Royal Oak residents thank neighbors, area business for help getting "Kallie" down safely.

A Royal Oak couple is feeling grateful after their 2-year-old cat Kallie was finally rescued on Saturday after being stuck in a neighbor's tree for four days.

Ken and Susan Corbin, who live on Kalama Street, said they contacted police and fire departments but no one could help.

"Nobody cared," Ken Corbin said. "It was terrible. I could look out the window and the snow was on her."

Find out what's happening in Royal Oakwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

When Corbin looked for Kallie in the tree Saturday morning he thought she may have frozen to death - she was covered in ice balls and a crow was sitting next to her.

He threw a snowball at the tree and the crow flew away. "That's when she woke up. I started bursting into tears just then," he says.

Find out what's happening in Royal Oakwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The Corbins also contacted local tree trimming companies. One offered the service but said it would cost more than $500, which they couldn't afford, he said.

That's when their son, Ferndale resident Kenny Corbin, had the idea to post about the situation on Facebook. He also asked Patch for help, and within minutes a post on Royal Oak Patch's Facebook page had many comments with ideas.

One family on the street, Don and Emily Bogart, came over with their son and said they had rented a scissor lift to try to rescue the cat. They wanted no compensation for the rental.

"She said she saw it on Patch. They have cats of their own so they came by," Susan Corbin said. "It was so sweet."

Kallie climbed higher in the tree, though, and the scissor lift couldn't reach.

Shortly after that, Kenny Corbin got a call from Brian Murdock, owner of tree trimming business Good Ol' Boys in Livonia.

Murdock said he saw a post on Facebook about the cat and wanted to help.

"I'm an animal lover myself," Murdock said. "In the post it said the cat was in the tree for four days so I hurried up and got over there."

Murdock says Kallie was about 60 feet up in the top of a Silver Maple tree. In order to get her down, one of his employees climbed the tree with tree spikes and a harness on.

"The cat was out of reach so we had to kind of like lasso the rope to the cat and a branch," he says.

Then the employee cut the branch a bit, pulled it closer and got the cat by the nape of her neck, placed her in a pillow case and lowered her down. Murdock, who says he does about five cat rescues a year, charged $150 for the service.

"The homeowners were in tears," Murdock said. "I think the cat used all nine lives on that one."

Kallie had some warm milk when she got inside and has been mostly sleeping since then. "She's all nice and dry and warm," Susan Corbin said.

The Corbins adopted Kallie from a shelter in December and she's still warming up to them. Since she's been back, though, she's been following them around the house - when she's not sleeping, that is. They doubt Kallie got much sleep over the past several days.

"She was so petrified she never budged. It was heartbreaking," Susan Corbin said. "We were just so afraid with the cold weather and the snow that she would've just froze to death. We're just so grateful to everybody."


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here