I posted this on a heavy equipment forum the other day-

"Cat Extracton"

Got a call on the two-way this morning.

“Rob? Are you busy”?
“I’m always busy, wadda yah got”?
“ Well, we got a housecat stuck in the serpentine belt and he’s pinned down between the fan and the radiator on the backhoe”.

I thought they were joking since it was Friday and I tell everyone not to breakdown on Fridays. So I told them to get knife and cut it up and pull out the pieces.

“He’s still alive. We called the human society to see if someone could come out and put it down but they couldn’t send anybody. We got a cop here but he can’t get a clean shot.”.

“Ok, I’ll be right out, see you in twenty.”

I’m picturing this poor little guy bloody, dismembered and howling. I was praying he would die before I got there. I drove into the site and saw the backhoe with the hood up. I parked and walked over to it to see what needed to be done. To my pleasant surprise there was no blood just lots of loose fur. The cat had himself wrapped up tighter than Houdini in a straight jacket. He was on his back with his head sticking out past the alternator. His stomach was pinned to the bottom of the fan shroud by one of the blades. His left front paw somehow got wedged between the alternator and the upper alt bracket

I started to take the alternator off then realized it would snap back towards the cat because of the tensioner. I looked at the tensioner and saw that the hole you use to unwind it had a fan blade right in front of it and we cant turn the fan because of the cat. So I got a pipe wrench and put it on the tensioner and had the operator pull it while I took the belt off the alt pulley.

The cat wriggled a bit. Taking the belt off freed him up somewhat. His paw was still trapped so off came the alternator. He started moving and we gently turned the fan and the cat managed to wiggle himself clear of the fan. He then shot up past the shroud and out over the lift arm and took off like a bat out of hell across the site and into a crawlspace.

I don’t ever want to have to do that again so I used the opportunity to remind the operator that he’s supposed to check the oil before starting any machine. Somehow I don’t think I have to worry about that now…