Police rescue Christmas visitor from chimney

POWELL - The wrong "claws" got stuck in a Powell chimney this Christmas season, requiring police to come to the rescue.

While it took some doing, a pair of officers managed to free a cat that had apparently fallen into the chimney of Northwest College Foundation's Nelson House on Thursday evening.

"It was kind of a challenge to get it out," Powell Police Sgt. Dustin DelBiaggio acknowledged, but the efforts were greatly appreciated by NWC Foundation staff, who had been at a loss as to how to free the feline.

The foundation was hosting a Thursday retirement party at the residence on College Drive when a child heard meowing coming from a downstairs fireplace.

"We were all kind of like, 'Really?'" recalled Jill Hartmann, the foundation's alumni and development coordinator.

But when they cleared away the decorative wood in front of the unused fireplace and managed to open the flue, sure enough, there was a cat. While the animal didn't seem happy about being stuck in the chimney, it also wouldn't come out. Hartmann tried luring the cat with some ham and cheese appetizers from the party and tried waiting until the party was over - hoping the quieter environment might be less intimidating - but neither tactic worked.

"The cat wasn't coming out," she said.

Hartmann knew she couldn't just leave the cat there, so as time wore on, "I started Googling, 'How to get a cat out of a chimney,'" she recalled, "and it said 'call animal control.'"

In Powell, that duty generally falls to the Powell Police Department and, when the community service officer is off-the-clock, to whichever officers are on-duty.

So when Hartmann phoned the department at 7 p.m., it was Sgt. DelBiaggio and Officer Isaac Gutierrez who answered the call.

When they arrived at the house, the feline had retreated out of sight.

Gutierrez managed to briefly grab one of its legs, but the cat escaped and "kind of took off to a spot where it was much higher up in the chimney where we couldn't reach it anymore," DelBiaggio said.

Not about to give up, the officers climbed onto the roof of the house and tossed some debris down the chimney to spook the cat back to a lower spot. The officers then returned to the basement, where Gutierrez was able to again get a hold of a leg.

"... The two of us tried to squeeze into the fireplace together, and kind of were able to hold on to it, onto both sides, until [Gutierrez] was able to get a good grasp on it and pull it out of there," DelBiaggio recalled.

Getting two men into the fireplace was a tight fit - "we got to know each other really well," DelBiaggio quipped - but the operation was made a bit easier by the cat, which proved to be more jolly old elf than Grinch.

After being grabbed, DelBiaggio said the feline "just accepted it."

"That was a relief," he added. "We had the welding gloves, everything else that we wear for cats, just ready to get all scratched up, but it [the cat] was nice."

The feline was thirsty and covered in debris, but otherwise seemed OK.

According to the cat's owners, the mostly outdoor animal had been straying from its home for lengthening periods of time, including disappearing for a week or two last month.

Prior to Thursday's discovery, the cat had again been missing for over a week, the owners said.

However, guests stayed at the Nelson House the prior weekend and didn't report any meowing, Hartmann said, which indicates the cat had been stuck in the chimney for only a portion of the time he was missing. As for what led the feline to the roof, that remains a mystery.

Rescuing the animal took the officers about 30 minutes, fortunately coming at a time they didn't have any higher priority calls.

"It's not a given that every time we have the ability to do that," DelBiaggio said of the chimney rescue, "but we'll try and help in different ways that we can - [to] help the community in the ways that they need it and really don't have any other options."

Hartmann and the foundation gave the department and officers a "huge shoutout" on Facebook for the help.

"They were awesome," Hartmann said.

Police took the cat to the City of Powell/Moyer Animal Shelter and posted some photos to Facebook, where the story was widely shared.

Word soon reached the cat's owners, who were out of state on a Christmas trip. The family plans to retrieve its pet when it returns.