Veterinarian walks miles to save beloved cat

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) - Blueberry, a 5-year-old cat, came to the Caldwell Mill Animal Clinic last week after her owners began noticing she wasn’t feeling well. She stayed over the weekend and on Monday, veterinarian Dr. Nicole Martin says they still couldn’t determine what was wrong.

But Tuesday morning things began to take a turn for the worse.

“Two of our most wonderful technicians got here through the snow and were able to look at her and called me and said something’s not right with Blueberry...they took x-rays which clearly showed there was something stuck in there,” says Martin.

With frigid temperatures and icy roadways, Martin says she knew she had to come in but she didn’t know how.

“I live at the bottom of a really big hill. so walking outside thinking, ‘Uh yeah, I’m going to take my car,’” says Martin. “I took three steps outside, fell down, was like, ‘No car can get out of this,’ and there was no other option other than to walk.”

Martin talked with the other veterinarians and technicians, since she was the closest, she started out on the three-mile walk from her neighborhood.

“I just happened to be the closest...so at that point we started looking outside, looking at all the ice and we realized there was no way I could get my car out of the driveway and we realized Valleydale was shut down,” says Martin.

It was a cold and bitter hike, but she says all she could think about was saving Blueberry’s life.

“We’ve been with her for days at this point in time, realizing how much we loved her and, once we saw the x-rays of what was making her sick, it was just in time we all got together to getting her life saved,” says Martin.

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