A Tyne and Wear firefighter has ended his 22-year career with a classic rescue: saving a cat from a tree. Micky Longstaff, 50, responded to his final callout on his last shift, initially thinking it was a prank.
The RSPCA had requested assistance after struggling to retrieve the cat due to the tree's fragility. Longstaff, alongside a new firefighter, used an aerial ladder platform to reach the stranded moggy.
Longstaff said: 'I always get asked 'do you really rescue cats from trees?' Thankfully, this time the answer was yes. I thought it was quite fitting that my last job, on my last shift, with some of my closest friends, was to rescue a cat from a tree.'
Station Manager Lee Bell praised Longstaff's dedication, stating: 'Mick has been a dedicated firefighter over the past 22 years... With it potentially being the last job Micky was going to be attending on behalf of the service, it was only right that he was the one to go up and get the cat.'
The cat was checked over and returned unharmed to its owner.
