If cats really do have nine lives, it’s a good bet that Oscar the Burmese used up more than a few on a recent 12-minute odyssey that he’s unlikely to forget any time soon. The poor little guy found himself caught at the wrong place at the wrong time: inside the washing machine on laundry day.
Oscar was likely just looking for a cozy place to catch a quick nap. But his cat dad, Angelo, had bedsheets to tend to. So into the front-loading machine they went, along with detergent and one stowaway cat. Angelo turned on the washer and went about his business, as cat mom Amanda did the same. Oscar began frantically meowing as the situation worsened. Amanda did hear something but thought the noise was coming from another part of the house. So she continued with the laundry, setting a load of clean clothes out to dry on the line. When she came back inside, she realized with horror that Oscar was inside the machine. “The poor little cat had his hands on the glass as he was doing the rotations and he was looking at me. It was tragic”, she told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Longest Two Minutes Ever
To make matters worse, the washer was mid-cycle. It would be an agonizing two minutes before she would actually able to get him out. Of course, Amanda phoned the vet right away. They weren’t exactly gushing words of encouragement. They said it would be “touch and go” for the first six hours or so. It was hard to say what kind of state poor Oscar had ended up in. There were a lot of variables at play: hot water, the hard plastic agitators that tossed him around, the caustic detergent. Not to mention, of course, the sheer horror of Oscar’s situation… being stuck inside a moving tumbler full of hot soapy water and no “off” switch. How would it all shake out?
The good news is that he did survive. It wasn’t the following hours that were a little tenuous but really the next several days. The vet gave him anti-inflammatories for his poor little battered body, and Oscar stayed with them for the first 24 hours. After that, he went home where mama Amanda says that he just slept for a week straight.
Are there any lingering effects for Oscar? It’s hard to say. He still investigates the washing machine, as always, but Amanda says that now “He sits there and watches it tumble-turn all the time. Maybe he has PTSD or something — he has to sit at the door watching the wash cycle.”
Pre-Wash Kitty Check
Though this situation is scary and could have easily ended in tragedy, unfortunately it is not an uncommon story. Especially in the cooler months, cat parents are always well-advised to check the inside of their washer and dryer before starting a load. If you know and love a kitty cat, you probably don’t need to be told how much they love warm, dark places.
One thing is really worth understanding, as hard as it is to stomach the thought. That horrific two minutes that mama Amanda had to endure before she could get to her poor furbaby. “Waiting the two minutes [for the washing machine’s door to release] was traumatic to say the least,” she said.
So, on behalf of curious cats everywhere: always do a pre-wash kitty check before loading your machine! Then you’ll never have to know what that two minutes feels like.
