Horror as pet cat found 'crying in distress' at car wash and covered in burns

10 June 2024 , 22:08

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Parker the cat was found with severe burns

A pet cat was found "crying in distress" and covered with third-degree burns as it ran out of a town car wash.

An animal charity chief has told how it received a panicked distress call from a man who discovered the cat as it dashed out of the building in Chorlton, a Manchester suburb. Katie Hayes, who runs the Pawpurrs Halfway House cat charity, immediately rushed over and, to her horror, found the "severely scolded" cat.

Ms Hayes, 46, told the Manchester Evening News that despite dealing with cats "in a really terrible mess" she was still shocked by the state of the injured animal. The discovery that the entire lower half of the cat's back was "severely scolded" left her "distressed and upset", but she acted quickly and rushed to the vet.

The cat was found with severe burns to its back

She said: "The cat had clearly been burnt by some kind of substance and they had just left it. You could see by looking at it, that it was either boiling hot water or some kind of chemical." Ms Hayes suspected the animal was being used to catch rats, having observed traps placed around the area.

She added that the moggy was given a litter tray as a bed and said she saw an empty food bowl and cat food wrappers scattered around. She added: "They were clearly feeding it some food and hoping it would hang around and kill rats." The charity boss scooped up the cat and sped to the vets, who were equally as shocked at the state of the animal.

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Parker's burns even horrified vets

She said: "The vets were absolutely mortified. They said in all their time of doing their job they had never seen a cat with such extreme third-degree burns. You could still feel heat coming off him and fur was just falling off his body. He was emaciated and couldn’t even stand himself up." The vets ultimately concluded that, based on the burn patterns, the cat had likely had a substance thrown on him that had splattered and had ulcers underneath his leg that could take up to six weeks to heal.

Parker has been given a new home as he recovers

Ms Hayes is now taking care of the cat, who she has named Parker, at her home in Chorlton. She said Parker is on the road to recovery and is fundraising to get him healed, adding: "I think he’s going to recover but it’s going to take quite a while and his wound is so deep I don’t think his fur will ever fully grow back."

Imogen Clyde-Smith