In the middle of a thunderstorm while driving his five ton semi-truck in Burnaby BC last week, trucker Dennis McDonald decided to make a stop that wasn’t planned. Dennis had noticed what he thought was a dead cat on the road, except something told him the cat was still alive, so he turned his truck around and stopped to check. Dennis tells Burnabynow that once he approached the black cat he could see that he “was a mess…he couldn’t even hold himself up. It was one of the worst things I’ve seen.”  Dennis’s quick thinking and roadside rescue got the cat, now named Kevin, to the Burnaby SPCA where he urged staff to skip the paper work and get the injured cat treated first.

Kevin the three-year-old feline had been hit by a car and suffered injuries to his top and bottom jaw. – Image BC SPCA

Dennis who is a cat lover already has two of his own and plans to adopt Kevin into his family once he is ready to go home. The SPCA had tracked down the cats original owner who was unable to pay for the surgery and had given the cat away to a neighbor. Kevin the cat was considered abandoned so the original owner decided to surrender him to the SPCA. Dennis said that “broke him in about a million pieces…I can’t do a lot on this planet, … but no being deserves to die anonymously in the corner.”

Dennis, who has visited Kevin at the SPCA, plans to change the cats name to BB-8 a nod to Star Wars and the cats original name BB.

The SPCA say that Kevin’s recovery has been touch and go but luckily none of his injuries are life threatening. “He might have some mild asymmetry in his face and decreased hearing because his left eardrum ruptured, but I think his life will be pretty good,” says Burnaby Hospital veterinarian Dr. Claudia Richter, who notes the necessary surgery was generously donated by our friends at West Coast Veterinary Dental Services.

Dennis who can be seen in this video with Kevin says that the cat is “amazing…and knows people are looking after him”.