This morning when I started the truck I heard something hit the radiator fan. I quickly shut back down trying to think what the heck could have caused that noise. I paused for a couple seconds in deep mechanical thought.

Then I heard the howl.

I exited the truck not wanting to believe what I had heard. Then it came again. And again. From under my hood.

I didn't see her when I first lifted the hood. A glimmer of hope that my suspicions were wrong briefly flashed by.

Then she lifted her head and looked at me.

She was between the passenger side battery and the radiator. Some part of her was trapped, probably between the belt and pulley. All I could see was her back and face, with a small trace of blood showing under her nose.

I've seen horrible things in my lifetime. Things I pray that God will let me forget someday. Even though there really wasn't any 'gore', this scene immediately went in that category. Because I knew what had to happen next.

As I unlocked the safe my wife asked what was going on. I couldn't answer. I eventually got something out that included 'cat' and 'engine'. I think that with the sight of the .380, she figured it out.

The cat was gone when I got back out there. I hunted for her for a half an hour with no luck. I don't want her to suffer, so I will be looking for her again when I get home from work. She has been spotted near the back porch around lunchtime, so I hope I can find her quickly. Sounds like she is in bad shape.

Dear God, please let me forget this someday . . .

 

It's never easy when that happens. The last time it happened to me was in my F150 - the cat's tail got caught up in the fan belt. It ran off with a busted tail with some fur missing off of it. He's an old Tom now, but he still wanders the neighborhood with a permanent kink in his tail.

Cats are amazingly resilient creatures.

 

Yes, there's been more than a few that have tangled with a fan and lived to tell about it. Must be those 9 lives at work.

 

Might be ok, So far I've "unwrapped" 2 from my Rollback. The one had to have some stitches, the other just got wounded pride. Cats are pretty tough, and very flexible.

In the winter, when I plug the truck in, I pull the hood every morning to check the oil.That way the cats take off

 

At my old job we had a lot of cats, always were in the habit of honking the trucks horns before starting. I would feel pretty terrible if it happened to me, not a huge cat fan outside of the barn but still an animal lover and don't want to cause injuries to anything.