By Phil Corso
After hearing about her elusive feline’s escapades on the news, an Oakland Gardens woman was reunited with her cat Wednesday at a Bayside animal hospital but not without a frantic search.
Vivian Yun last saw her year-old black-and-white cat Luna Sunday night before noticing he had disappeared the next day.
“I thought he was outside playing or something,” Yun said. “I came back home Monday and saw he was nowhere to be found.”
By Monday evening, news reports told the tale of a cat stranded in a tree across the street from PS 213 on 67th Avenue and 213th Street, which caused NYPD Officer Dane Natto to become stuck in the limbs himself while trying to rescue him.
Natto, left stranded in front of a crowd of elementary school students, needed his partner to call in for assistance to get him and the cat out of the tree. It took the Fire Department to use its ladder and bucket to end the half-hour ordeal and free them both once and for all, the New York Post reported.
By the end of the day, Yun’s friends and relatives were calling to alert her.
“I saw the reports in the news and thought, ‘That is definitely my cat,’” Yun said. “I had been looking since Sunday and was thinking maybe somebody took him home.”
Yun spent all day Tuesday and Wednesday trying to find out what happened to Luna after both the cat and officer were rescued Monday, but to no avail. She stopped at different nearby firehouses to ask if anyone knew where her cat ended up, but said no one could pinpoint where Luna was.
Finally, Yun received a tip after visiting the 111th Precinct in Bayside Wednesday evening, where she was directed to the nearby North Shore Animal Hospital. Luna was waiting for her there.
“He’s a really friendly cat,” Yun said. “I was surprised no one had tried to take him home.”
Reach reporter Phil Corso by e-mail at pcorso@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4573.
