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Good Guy Cabbie Stops In Traffic To Save Kitten On Van Wyck
By
Ben Yakas
Published Oct 4, 2014
Modified Oct 4, 2014
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Family handout
By
Ben Yakas
Published Oct 4, 2014
Modified Oct 4, 2014
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A cab driver stopped in the middle of traffic on the Van Wyck Expressway this week to save a lost kitten. Bill Cannon, co-owner of Beech Street Taxi in Long Beach, was on his way home on Thursday afternoon when he got stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic near the Liberty Avenue exit. That's when he spotted the orange kitten on a traffic barrier.
"I was going by slow enough that I could hear it crying," Cannon told WCBS. "I stopped and jumped out and grabbed it and put it in the car. It was ready to jump into traffic when I jumped out of the car." He called his wife and told her what happened: "I said, 'You're either going to love me or you're going to hate me,'" Cannon said. "She sounded a little off at first and then once she saw the cat, forget it."
To add to the adorability: the kitten was so frightened, he climbed under the dashboard from the passenger seat in the car. When Cannon got home, he had to remove part of the dashboard, and it still took around two hours to coax him out.
"The cat's nose was bloody and we washed that up and it seems OK," Cannon added. "It's just kind of limping around a little bit." Although he planned on giving it up for adoption, his family (including four children ranging in age from 10 to 24) immediately fell in love with it. They've now named him Autumn, although we maybe would have gone with Awwwwwwtumn.
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Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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