A fluffy orange and white cat now named Garfield survived a direct hit from a Long Island Rail Road train and spent nearly a full day lying on the tracks before rescuers pulled him to safety near the Lindenhurst station on Long Island.
The cat's ordeal began Saturday night, when a train engineer spotted the feline lying motionless on the rails and assumed it was dead. The engineer moved on. But when he passed the same stretch of track on Sunday evening, nearly twenty-four hours later, the cat was still there. This time, it was moving.
That small sign of life set off a rescue effort involving an expert cat rescuer, MTA Police officers, and a three-minute rail power shutdown that, remarkably, caused no disruption to LIRR service. The episode is a small, welcome reminder that not every story out of New York's sprawling transit system has to end badly, and that ordinary people stepping up still matters.
Once the engineer confirmed the cat was alive on Sunday evening, John DeBacker, described as an expert cat rescuer, was enlisted to help. DeBacker asked the MTA Police Department for assistance, and officers agreed to shut off power to the rails so the team could approach safely.
With the third rail dead, DeBacker slowly walked toward Garfield alongside officers. The cat was caught in a net and lifted into a crate. The entire power shutdown lasted just three minutes.
Police told CBS New York that Garfield was frightened but did not appear to be seriously injured by the train. He did have a visible wound on his face. But for a cat that had been struck by a commuter rail train and then spent a full night and day on active tracks, the outcome bordered on miraculous.
DeBacker, who has handled feral and stray cats before, told reporters what concerned him most during the approach:
"The scariest part for me was not knowing what was going through the cat's mind."
His worry turned out to be misplaced. The cat showed no aggression at all.
"He didn't try to bite me at all. He was extremely affectionate once I picked him up."
After the rescue, Garfield was transferred to South Shore Feral Care, a rescue group based in West Babylon. The organization posted about the cat's arrival on Facebook, clearly still processing what had happened.
"Can you help us find the words to describe being 'stable after HIT BY A TRAIN'? Luck, fate, we're dumbfounded!"
The group said Garfield would be meeting with a veterinary team that includes an orthopedist. Videos later showed the orange cat loudly meowing, a good sign for an animal that had been motionless on railroad tracks less than a day earlier.
One detail worth noting: the MTA Police Department managed to cut power to the rails, execute the rescue, and restore service in three minutes flat, with no disruption to LIRR passengers. Anyone who rides the Long Island Rail Road knows that delays can materialize for far less dramatic reasons. That the system absorbed a live animal rescue without missing a beat is a credit to the officers and crew involved.
The engineer's name has not been publicly released. Neither has the exact location along the tracks near Lindenhurst station where Garfield was found. What specific injuries the cat sustained beyond the facial wound remain unclear pending the veterinary evaluation South Shore Feral Care described.
There is no policy fight here. No partisan angle. Just a train engineer who noticed a cat, reported it, and noticed again the next day. A cat rescuer who dropped what he was doing. MTA Police officers who cut the power and walked the tracks. A rescue group that took the animal in and got him to a vet.
Each person in the chain did the next right thing. That is how small-scale civic life is supposed to work, people seeing a problem, taking responsibility, and solving it without a committee, a press conference, or a budget line.
Garfield, for his part, appears to have earned his name. The famously lazy cartoon cat is known for having nine lives and an iron will to survive. This particular orange cat rode out a train strike and a cold night on the rails, then purred when a stranger picked him up.
In a region where the trains don't always run on time, at least the rescue did.