NewsflareThere aren’t many reasons to swim through a polluted river. This hero however, landed on a good one when he saved a stranded kitten from drowning.
This is the heart-warming moment a good Samaritan braves a filthy canal in Bangkok, Thailand, to rescue a stranded kitten moments after the hapless feline fell into the dirty water.
You can watch the scene, which occurred on Thursday 27 September, play out below:
Onlookers watched as the soggy moggy tried to scramble to the side of the waterway after the incident on Thursday afternoon.
The faint cries of meow from the female cat were heard by passers-by who were too afraid to wade through the notoriously polluted canals.
But one man bravely removed his top – and despite not being a strong swimmer – used a polystyrene box as a float to negotiate the deepest part of the water.
He made it to the other side where he was able to stand within reach of the cat, which at this stage, looked a lot like the Inferi in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Only, a lot less scary and a lot more sympathetic.
But luckily, this guy was on hand and things panned out a lot better for the cat than the fictional bewitched corpses.
The resourceful man was carrying a large net in his free hand – thank god he thought to take it to work that day – which he then used to scoop up the kitten and pass it to a neighbour whose house backs onto the canal.
The endearing scene was filmed by onlooker Rimklong Sammakkhi, 37, who said the man was a ‘hero’.
She added:
The car was stuck and couldn’t get out. I think everybody has to say thank you to this man who rescued the cat. The water is not clean and he was very brave to go inside.
Rim said the cat has now been ‘adopted’ by one of the residents.
She added:
The kitten was only small, and still young. I think it could have lost its mother and then fallen into the canal. It will be taken care of now by people who live there.
We all love an underdog (or should that be undercat?) story, don’t we? And science says there’s nothing humans love more – or feel an urge to protect more – than an animal in trouble. Seriously.
It seems humans are more moved by the suffering of dogs than people, after a study found battered dogs elicited more empathy from the populace than abused humans.
Scientists say this may be because animals are more helpless than humans and less able to defend themselves.
Professor Jack Levin and Professor Arnold Arluke, from Northeastern University in Boston examined the opinions of 240 people who received one of four fictional news articles.
The victim changed in each article, which read:
Arriving on the scene a few minutes after the attack, a police officer found the victim with one broken leg, multiple lacerations, and unconscious. No arrests have been made in the case.
One case concerned the beating of a one-year-old child and the second documented the abuse of an adult in his thirties. The other two were about a puppy and a six-year-old dog.
The difference in empathy between child and puppy was ‘statistically non-significant’, but the dog garnered more feeling than the adult, researchers found.
The researchers also found responders were significantly less distressed when adult humans were victimised.
While cats don’t necessarily have the same cuddly reputation as the canine counterparts – so-called Man’s Best Friend – their effect on humankind is evidently the same.
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A former emo kid who talks too much about 8Chan meme culture, the Kardashian Klan, and how her smartphone is probably killing her. Francesca is a Cardiff University Journalism Masters grad who has done words for BBC, ELLE, The Debrief, DAZED, an art magazine you’ve never heard of and a feminist zine which never went to print.