He gave her the second chance she needed.
Thomas Stanfield, a police officer in Alachua, Florida, was cruising down NW US Hwy 441 when he noticed a tiny, black-furred kitten on the road ahead. The kitten was lying in the middle of the highway, seemingly frozen in fear. Cars zoomed past, barely missing the little animal.
“I spotted it and thought it had already been struck,” Stanfield, who also works as a public information officer at the Alachua Police Department, told The Dodo.
But when Stanfield drove past the kitten, he noticed the animal’s ears pointing up. Seeing this, Stanfield swung into action.
“I turned on my emergency lights and began to back up,” Stanfield said.
The driver of a Mi Apa Latin Cafe truck, who’d been traveling behind Stanfield, had also seen the kitten — and he quickly figured out what Stanfield was intending to do. The driver stopped on the highway and used his truck to block one of the lanes, making it easier for Stanfield to reach the eensy cat.
After parking his police car, Stanfield hurried toward the kitten. After another car hurtled past, he scooped up the little animal and took him back to his car.
The whole event was captured on his body camera:
“I just found a baby kitten in the middle of 441,” Stanfield said on his radio as he walked back to his car.
Stanfield drove back to the station, holding the kitten in the palm of his hand.
While no one know for sure how the kitten got on the highway, Stanfield said he believes he crawled into an engine compartment of a vehicle, then fell out onto the road.
“I was relieved that I was able to rescue the kitten,” Stanfield said. “That roadway is a very busy road as it runs from south Florida to north.”
Not only did Stanfield save the kitten’s life, but he helped the kitten find a forever home with someone in his department.
“The kitten is now living its best life with one of our dispatchers,” he said.
