VENTURA, CALIFORNIA - Bridges’ kitty, Koi, survived a 20-minute drive on Saturday while she was stuck in the engine of Bridges’ car.
Bridges’ boyfriend, Lucas Lambert, had driven just about 10 miles from the east end of Ventura to pick her up from work in Downtown Ventura. They were at the intersection of Main and Palm streets around 8:30 p.m. when a woman came up to their car yelling, “There’s a cat! There’s a cat!”
“I assumed the lady was drunk because the Wine Walk was going on,” Bridges said. “I thought she was crazy, but we turned the music in the car down and we heard a meow. I checked the back seat and there was no cat there. Finally, we got out of the car and popped open the hood.”
They could see a cat, but they were not able to get to her. She was stuck in a small spot between the motor and the radiator, behind the front license plate of all places!
“People ran from all directions to help,” Bridges said. “It was surreal. The restaurant across the street, Capriccio, brought out a little plate of chicken to try to lure her out. A couple of people tried to pull her out.”
Bridges said Koi was scared. And of course, so was she.
“We had stopped traffic,” Bridges explained. “We were in one of the only open intersections from the Wine Walk, so people were honking, but I didn’t want to drive. The fact that she had gone that long and not been hurt was a miracle.”
Bridges spotted a Ventura Police officer who happened to be one of her regular customers from one of her jobs at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. The officer, Cmdr. Tom Higgins, called Martin Henderson, who is the owner of Double R Towing.
As luck would have it, Henderson and his wife were just finishing their day at the Wine Walk and were only about a block away. With tools always in his truck, he went to rescue Koi, the cat.
Henderson said he’d rescued cats in the past, but he’d never seen one trapped quite where Koi was.
He had to jack up the car and take the valance of the car off the front of the vehicle. That way, Koi could get out.
Henderson said the cat was scared almost to death, so he warned Bridges to be ready to catch her as soon as she was free to run. The 10-minute operation went very smoothly luckily.
Henderson did not charge a fee for his time or efforts.
“You can’t charge somebody when they’re in need like that,” he said. “It’s wrong. When I unlock a car with somebody’s kid in there, I don’t charge. That’s not right. It always feels good to do something good for somebody.”
Bridges said it took awhile for Koi to calm down at home, but life is back to normal. She is very grateful that all the stars somehow aligned in her favor.
“The whole thing felt like a movie,” Bridges said. “It was scary, but a very positive and uplifting experience because so many people were willing to help.”
One down, eight more lives to go!