He doesn't wear a mask or cape, but John DeBacker is a hero to one Long Island family.
Wearing his “Catman” T-shirt, DeBacker pulled off the intricate rescue of a frightened and exhausted cat named Lola who had spent about five days trapped, likely upside down for most of that time, behind a wall in her family's old home in the New York City suburbs.
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Lola's ordeal began about two weeks before the rescue, when she ducked under a floorboard while the family was moving out of their second-floor apartment in Franklin Square.
That’s when DeBacker and his team were called in.
DeBacker, who has been rescuing cats for at least 15 years, set a trap with food and cameras in the hopes of luring Lola out, but she'd avoid the trap when she emerged at night.
Things took a turn for the worse when she stopped showing up at all — she had fallen and was now stuck behind a first-floor wall.
When they found her, Lola was trapped upside-down, eating insulation and becoming increasingly weak. DeBacker was losing hope that they’d get her out alive.
But their luck changed last Friday. With a contractor's help, they used an electric saw to start cutting a hole in the wall and managed to see Lola through an endoscopic camera. She seemed nervous, so to prevent her from trying to flee further into the wall, they switched to a quieter drill.
“After two weeks we did not want to lose the cat again,” he said.
In video of the rescue, DeBacker can be seen reaching through the narrow hole, where he made contact with Lola’s hind legs. He then moves into a standing position, shifts his weight back and carefully pulls her out backward.
“Safe!” a woman can be heard saying as the dusty and exhausted cat is placed into a towel-lined crate.
When Lola was finally freed, DeBacker described it as the greatest feeling in the world.
“We were all so happy,” he said.
“It’s pretty miraculous that the cat survived there five days with no food or water,” DeBacker said. “And when you’re upside-down, all the blood is rushing to your head.”
Lola was taken to an emergency vet, where they found insulation in her body, he said. She is now back with her family and struggling with a poor appetite. Her family has been taking her to the vet to try to figure out what's going on, he said.
DeBacker, who has four cats of his own, offered a word of caution to any fellow cat owners who are preparing to move: "Secure the cats first and not after all the moving. The moving will scare the cat into hiding.”