AN EX-Tamworth woman moved back to the city partly because of its people’s “amazing” work in saving her life – and now they’ve done the same for her cat.
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Rosalie Palmer had been back in Tamworth for only about two weeks and her cat for two days when Bella snuck out of the house and down a drain.
After a worrying 24 hours, she asked the Carthage St firies to help, and she visited The Leader office late last week to share how “just wonderful” they were.
Ms Palmer said she lived in Tamworth about 20 years ago and a couple of strange life twists had brought her back.
She’d been running a cosmetic injectibles clinic in Yamba when she met a farmer from Guyra and decided to move closer.
She was tossing up between Inverell and Tamworth when, in January, a horse bolted and threw her off during a test-ride.
“There was a Westpac Rescue Helicopter crew going over on its way back from Tamworth to Lismore, and they turned around and came and got me,” she said.
“They saved me and the hospital saved me.
“I was in resus and everything – don’t remember a lot of it, but the nursing staff and the hospital were amazing …
“I had nine fractured ribs, I had two fractured collarbones, I had haemopneumothoraces – holes and bleeding in my lungs, I had cerebral bleeding … I was a very, very lucky lady that I wasn’t in a wheelchair.”
Two from two
Ms Palmer said, “I just felt that Tamworth was a special place”.
“And see, now it’s rescued me and it’s rescued Bella – so Tamworth keeps rescuing us.”
Tamworth keeps rescuing us.
- Rosalie Palmer
Ms Palmer is working part-time as a registered nurse at the hospital, and is also setting up her clinic in Peel St.
After bringing her “beautiful, affectionate” three-year-old adopted tortoiseshell to live at her new home in the Hillvue area, Ms Palmer opened a door and Bella snuck out.
“I was thinking she’d come back – 24 hours later she wasn’t back. [That] night I was going round the district … and heard her stuck down the stormwater drain.
“I tried to call her to get her out, but we couldn’t get the grate open; it was dark and she’d gone into the tunnel.”
On Thursday morning, worried about the rain forecast, she enlisted the help of the firies.
A team called around and two of them climbed down drains: one with a hose to push air at Bella from one end, the other to catch her at the other end.
“They were so nice, they were just lovely, I couldn’t believe their help,” Ms Palmer said.
“They were just wonderful. There was no way I could have gotten her out … Tamworth’s saved both of us now.”
Station officer Tim Gillard said the officers had been happy to help.
“The reason we attend these and all types of incidents is that it is our role as an emergency service organisation to assist the community where necessary,” he said.
“Rescuing cats, or other domestic animals, is also part of our role as a secondary rescue unit.”