CHENNAI: As the city buzzes with life, malls throng with crowds and people at workplaces prepare for Monday morning blues, a bunch of people in the city are on the lookout for animals in trouble. The value of a life is more than anything, is the belief what keeps these young volunteers rescuing animals in the city.
A kitten and a cat had fallen into a well at Periyar Nagar in Perambur when Dawn Williams at Blue Cross of India received a call for their rescue. Also, a baby monkey had to be rescued from a house in Ayanavaram. And this team of young guys left aside all the work they were engaged in order to rescue animals in distress.
Dawn Williams, General Manager, Blue Cross of India, said: “The members are informed about the animal to be rescued and the area. Even if they’re doing their regular jobs, most of the times they come for the rescue. More than an hour’s salary, they understand the value of the life of an animal.”
The volunteers Sathish, Jagadeesh, Vijay, Deepak, and Dawn himself, set out to rescue the lives in distress. After more than one hour journey, the rescue team reached the house in Periyar Nagar. The family that the felines belonged to were not sure if they had fallen into a well Sunday evening or Monday morning but they heard the cries of the kitten only by Monday noon.
In the well, the kitten was terrified and was crying for help. The cat sat in the corner at the bottom, oblivious to the cries of the kitten. At the spot, Sathish and Jagadeesh got ready as per Dawn’s instructions and lowered the rope into the well. Using the rope, one of the volunteers got down into the well. The act was dangerous and the results uncertain, as the distressed kitten had been in the well for more than eight hours.
Very meticulously, Sathish lowered himself into the well and reached the cement ring where the cat and kitten were sitting. Once he caught the kitten, it pounced, in the hope of getting rescued. It was a difficult task to bring the cats out of the well, as they looked scared from the fall.
But the operation was a success. Both of them were rescued and they reunited with the solo kitten outside the well.
Next rescue to be made was at a house in Ayanavaram. A baby monkey was kept tied up due to a dog in the home. The family was failing to take care of the monkey. The monkey was scared of the dog and had been crying for help when the rescue team from Blue Cross reached there.
The volunteers rescued the animal and brought it to the Blue Cross shelter from where it would be handed over to the Forest Department.
The team behind the two rescues:
The force behind the team, Dawn Williams, had served the army for about 25 years where he learnt how to deal with animals and their rescue. He trained the members of the team to rescue animals like dogs, cats, cows, snakes, monkeys to name a few.
Many of the volunteers have been in the rescue operation for over a year now. Sathish, a national level table tennis player who is working with LIC, has helped rescue around 80 animals till date. He has been working with Blue Cross as a volunteer for over a year. He said, “It is a task that needs utmost care as the trust of the animal needs to be gained during the act of rescue.” Sathish is of one the volunteers who have relinquished consuming non vegetarian food. He has become a vegan for the past eight months now.
The volunteers are always ready for rescue calls at any point of the day.
As the sun sets and the team arrived the shelter with the monkey, a bunch of rescued dogs that now live here, jump with joy and greet the members. Every rescue operation becomes the beginning of a new chapter in an animal’s life.