When a driver dumped a kitten in a trash bag by the road, this Etters plumber rescued it
When Jason Schwartz, a plumbing technician at Handyside Plumbing, HVAC & Electrical in Etters, went out on a service call in late April, he never anticipated rescuing a baby kitten.
Schwartz was parked outside a home in New Cumberland, gathering tools from his car before heading into the client’s home, when a car drove by and dropped a trash bag on the side of the road. Suddenly, the bag started to move.
Unsure what was in the bag, Schwartz thought it might’ve been a snake, so he grabbed a pipe from his car to move the bag.
“That’s when he realized it was an abandoned kitten,” said Handyside Plumbing marketing administrator Olivia Thomas. And his client offered Schwartz a blanket and box for the two-week-old kitten, who was barely able to walk and struggled to keep its eyes open.
With the kitten by his side, Schwartz needed to make one more client visit before heading back to the office. Luckily, that client was an emergency medical technician and offered Schwartz a few syringes, so he could feed the kitten.
When he brought her back to the office, the staff immediately welcomed the baby kitten with open arms.
Thomas, a dedicated cat lover and cat mom to one, offered to take the kitten to Valley Green Veterinary Hospital. There, she learned that the kitten had pneumonia. Thanks to her and Schwartz’s swift response time, the kitten, who was less than three weeks old, was given medicine and her pneumonia has since cleared.
And after discussing who would care for the kitten, the two agreed that Thomas would be able to take care of her. This includes vet visits, and feeding the kitten every two hours, even if it means losing sleep. But Thomas doesn’t mind; caring for the kitten gives her purpose.
“People do a lot of bad things out there so it makes me feel better that I can correct that,” Thomas said. “Every time I look at her, I wonder how they could do that, but I think everything happens for a reason and now she’s with me and she’s my family.”
Thomas said she plans to name her new kitten once it’s fully weaned and reaches the eight-week mark, and hopes to call her “lucky,” or “bat.”