Efforts to rescue a cat stuck in a pipe at the Fiesta Mall have stalled for the night after rescuers began digging a hole in an attempt to get the animal out.
The cat was discovered on Saturday when somebody heard a cat crying from the drainage pipe that is about 30 feet down from one of the main entrances to Dillard's at the mall.
12 News found out about the cat when Lourdes Salomon reached out to us via our Facebook page. She claimed the cat had been in the pipe for over 12 hours.
"We can only hear it crying, it's way down in the pipe," she said. "I feel bad it's been stuck in this drain pipe."
The Mesa Fire Department was called to the scene but the mall decided to take full responsibility in rescue efforts and they even brought out an excavator to dig a hole.
Rescuers tried almost everything to get the cat to come out. They put food and a mesh net down to the cat to try to coerce it into either latching onto the net and being pulled up or crawling to the bigger horizontal pipe near the pipe the cat is stuck in.
"We are trying to figure out how to get it out, we've tried putting a rope down there, panty hose, other clothes but not get it out," Salomon said.
But neither worked, so rescuers resorted to digging a 6-to-8 foot hole.
The hole will go down to the horizontal pipe that is closest to the pipe the cat is stuck in. Rescuers will then cut a hole in the pipe to hopefully rescue the cat.
It is unknown how the cat got into the drainage pipe but a nearby canal may be the reason. The cat could have crawled from the canal into a system of pipes and ended up getting stuck in the one near the mall, but right now, people are just focused on saving the kitten.
A local animal rescue group has put out traps in hopes that the cat will emerge and rescue efforts will resume Tuesday morning.
