Cat Rescue Warms Heart Of Fire Victim ‘I Didn’t Care About Anything Else In That Apartment - Just My Cat’

Peggy Jones, disabled and on welfare, lives a lonely life in a downtown Spokane apartment.

The 51-year-old woman found a glimmer of happiness a year ago when pet rescue workers gave her a black kitten.

“She’s the only one in my apartment with me, so I named her Gabby,” Jones explains. “She talks with me.”

Gabby’s meows went silent Monday night.

But another kind of pet rescue saved her life.

A smoker-caused fire broke out in a sofa about 8:30 while Jones was away briefly from her second-floor apartment at 425 S. Washington.

The 13-month-old black cat was overcome by the smoke near its favorite antique chair, just a few feet away from the burning couch.

Its limp body was spotted by firefighter Bridget Ann Luby, who’s been on the job just five months.

“I knelt down and shined my flashlight under a table,” Luby explained. “I saw a couple of those little paws and said, ‘Oh, my God.”’

The 28-year-old firefighter, wearing oxygen breathing gear, picked up the animal and raced outside.

Jones was about three blocks away, at a downtown cafe, when she learned her apartment was on fire.

“I can’t run, or I would have,” said Jones, who suffers from arthritis and emphysema. Still, she made a frantic return to the apartment where fire truck lights were flashing.

“When I got there, all I could say is, ‘Where’s my kitty? Where’s my kitty?”’ Jones said.

“I didn’t care about anything else in that apartment - just my cat.”

The crying pet owner was directed by Luby to firefighter Cathy Baskin, who had placed a tiny oxygen mask over the cat’s mouth.

Firefighter Russ Butters was massaging its chest.

In a move bound to scare life back into any cat, firefighters who first entered the burning apartment had unknowingly doused the unconscious feline with water.

“When I saw her there, wet and limp in the firefighter’s arms, I told her, ‘It’s Mommy, and I’m here,”’ Jones recalled.

“She opened one eye and looked at me, and then I knew she was going to be OK,” Jones said as tears filled her eyes.

“I just want to thank those wonderful firefighters,” she said.

Before her health problems set in, Jones worked in a real estate closing office and for a dry cleaner.

She currently gets by on state welfare, awaiting just-approved Social Security disability payments.

With her apartment heavily damaged by smoke, Jones turned to the Red Cross, which lined up a motel room where she could keep Gabby.

“She crawled down to my feet under the blankets, and just stayed there all night,” Jones said.

Tuesday morning, her four-legged companion was spitting up phlegm. Again, with no money, Jones didn’t know where to turn.

She took Gabby to East Wind Veterinary Hospital, where Dr. Judith Canon-Price agreed to treat the cat, and accept payments when Jones can afford it. The clinic routinely seeks adoptions for abandoned animals.

Animal health technician Heather Brown said the 7.2-pound domestic shorthair suffers from irritated nasal and throat passages, and was being given antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs.

“Considering she was out for anywhere from a halfhour to 45 minutes, she’s doing remarkably well,” Brown said.

The pet’s owner wanted to give the young firefighter another hug of thanks.

She probably can’t return to the apartment because the manager says cats officially aren’t allowed.

“I’ll find some other place where I can have my cat,” Jones said. “She’s a special cat, and she’s even more special now.”

Luby, a registered nurse-turned-firefighter, was proud of her first rescue.

But she will pay a price.

Even though Monday was her last rookie shift at downtown Station No. 1, she will fulfill the department’s tradition.

“I’ve got to serve up pie and ice cream for everybody down there, and it’s the biggest station in town.”

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