A very small week-old kitten was taken and saved from under a house after two days of searching.

Sergeant A. Morton from the State of North Carolina has been taking care of community cats beside his wife, Hannah. Starting in March, they have started working on a TNR (trap-neuter-return) project in their local area.

“We decided to start trapping feral cats near our house. Over the next couple of days, we were able to capture two feral cats,” Sgt. Morton said.

A pregnant cat had been discovered in the surrounding neighborhood but the next time they saw her, her belly had gone down. “Our stress levels elevated as we worried about the safety of the newborn kittens.”

They started searching for the tiny kittens until Hannah found them in the closet of a bathroom at an abandoned building. However, the feral cat mom took one of her kittens and fled while they were trying to trap her.

“I decided to tie a rope to the releasing arm of the trap door, so I could manually activate the trap from a distance when she came back.”

With a ton of patience, they eventually got the cat mom, but discovering the remaining kitten became quite a challenge.

“By this point we had searched everywhere and everything top to bottom multiple times. Hannah took the captured mother and four kittens to the shelter’s director and now the stress was solely on me to find the kitten.”

He spent the next few hours diligently searching, going back over steps, and moving debris until he was physically and mentally worn out. “I returned to my house, feeling sick with emotions and guilt over the loss of the infant kitten’s life.”

The following day, he went back to the outer areas of the building to continue the search as he couldn’t get the tiny cat out of his mind. After a couple of laps around the place, it was still to no use. Then the next day, as he was getting ready to go to work, he heard what he thought was a kitten crying.

“I started walking towards my neighbor’s home when I heard that sound again. This time I was close enough to hear it more clearly. The screams sounded like they were coming from under the modular home.”

He found the tiniest sections of the house where the little cat could crawl under.

“I grasped the edge of the insulation and pulled it down just enough to get my hand in between the insulation and flooring of the home,” Morton said.

“When I reached into the small sized pocket, I felt something warmer and harder than the insulation and wondered if I had found the kitten or if I was about to have a pet rat. When I gently grabbed the questionable ball of fur, it immediately started crying out again.”

He eventually made his way out with the kitten in his palm. Lo and behold, the small bundle of fur was alive, breathing and struggling to survive.

“I held the kitten against my chest, inside my uniform shirt and drove directly to the (shelter) director’s house,” Morton said. “He said the mother was still at the shelter and he would have somebody meet me there to reunite them.”

“When I placed the kitten in the cage with its family and was able to witness the survival kitten nurse his mother, suddenly my heart filled with joy and the stress of two days diminished in an instant,” Morton told Love Meow.

“I knew I needed to get to work, but I was already two hours late, so what would a few more minutes matter.”

“Mama cat and kittens are doing great! The reunited kitten is thriving,” Dayna, Shelter Manager of Chesterfield County, SC Animal Services, said.