Curiosity and the Cat

One past story that I was sent on had a very tragic ending. I was sent south of Cleveland to the quiet town of Bath, OH. My reporter and I were trying to get sound about a murder that had taken place there overnight. We found a neighbor to the murder victim and asked if we could interview him. The neighbor sadly said yes.

As I was setting up for the interview, we noticed the man was restoring a 1958 Cadillac. Currently, he was working on the engine and degreasing the parts. We all got into a conversation about the car. Cost, finding parts, miles, etc. I wondered what he was using to take the grime and grease off the parts. The man told me, he was using a gasoline mix to get the gunk off.

As we looked down to the container holding the mixture, one of his cats was casually drinking the gas concoction. A loud gasp came from all of us. The man yelled "Hey!!" and the cat took off like a bat out of hell. But it was too late.

The cat went about 20 feet away and stopped. Then it started shaking uncontrolably. The cat coughed a few times and then took off like a rocket towards the back of the house.

We stood in a state of shock, not believing our eyes. In a way, it was a little funny. Seeing this cat running like it's ass was on fire. But, bittersweet as well, because we knew the cat was in a bad state.

Suddenly, we hear a loud howl from the back yard. We all craned our necks to see what happened. And then here comes the cat running for all it's worth from the back. It heads around the side of the house to the driveway. Unexplicably then it starts to run in circles, as if it was chasing it's tail.

As the three of us are watching this, wondering what is happening to the poor cat, said cat comes out of his whirling dervish and heads full speed up the driveway.

Straight at us....

As we're preparing to jump out of the way, the cat comes to a quick and sudden stop...and just starts shaking and coughing again...

Then this poor creature stands stiff as a board and falls over on his side.....










The poor cat had run out of gas.