Maybe cats really do have nine lives.
An adorable Ragdoll cat named Lulu from England gave her owner quite the scare when she swallowed a two-inch long needle and thread – and miraculously survived without any stitches.
One-year-old Lulu had swallowed the needle and thread in March after her owner, Jane Brigham-Curtis, 55, had left it on the windowsill to go answer a phone call, SWNS reported.
“It all happened so fast, within 20 or 30 seconds,” Brigham-Curtis said, according to SWNS.
“It was a Sunday morning and I put the needle down on the windowsill to answer the phone, heard a strange scraping noise and noticed that the needle had disappeared.”
Brigham-Curtis admitted that she immediately became concerned, but took swift action, rushing Lulu off to an emergency veterinarians office.
She herself is an “experienced receptionist” at a veterinary clinic, so Lulu’s mom knew just how dire this situation could quickly become.
When the two arrived to the emergency clinic, they performed an X-ray on Lulu, which revealed that the two-inch long needle-and-thread was indeed stuck in the cat’s stomach.
Brigham-Curtis was then referred Davies Veterinary Specialists, where head of internal medicine Anna Threlfall and Internal medicine resident Laura Sáez Cutando were able to use an endoscopy to find the needle.
The doctors were able to spot the needle because the red thread was still attached to it.
“The challenging part was that Lulu had eaten food so it was like finding a ‘needle in a hay stack,’” Brigham-Curtis explained, according to SWNS.
“It was actually hidden between dry biscuits and treats, and it was the red cotton we spotted first, then very slowly we followed it to the needle.”
However, it wasn’t all smooth sailing once they found where the needle was – according to her owner, Lulu’s breathing made it more difficult to find the so-called prized possession.
“Lulu’s breathing made the search a bit more challenging as the food content in her stomach was also moving, so at times we lost track of the red cotton and had to ‘dig’ between pieces of biscuits to find it again,” Brigham-Curtis said.
In order to get it out, the doctors had placed a gastric tube through Lulu’s mouth that went all the way into her stomach.
They also used forceps to pull out the string – with the whole ordeal only lasting around 40 minutes.
And, in the end, she didn’t even need stitches.
Brigham-Curtis’ cat was cleared to go home from the veterinarian’s office only a few hours after they removed the needle.
Since the scare, Lulu has thankfully made a full recovery, her owner reports.
“It was such a relief,” Brigham-Curtis said, according to SWNS. “I know there are some things that animals swallow which can pass safely through the system and come out at the other end.”
“You can’t risk that with a sharp needle, especially with the thread attached, so I’m very grateful to Laura and the team.”
