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Cat left for dead nursed by feline lover

Staff photo by Nick Daggy Julan Norman holds a cat she named "Happy", after rescuing him from the middle of River Road in Hamilton Saturday Oct. 17. Julan has seven cats she has rescued from the streets at her Lindenwald home.

ENLARGE PHOTO

By Rick McCrabb, Columnist 7:24 PM Monday, October 19, 2009

HAMILTON — Julan Norman, half-kidding, calls herself a “Crazy Cat Lady.”

There’s no debating her fondness for felines — she has seven strays living with her, she has spayed or neutered 50 cats in the past 10 years, and the ashes of her cremated 20-year-old Siamese cat are stored in a beautiful ceramic urn.

And after Saturday’s act, it’s hard to argue the crazy part.

On Saturday night, Norman and a friend, David Lenser, were returning to her Williams Avenue home when they spotted what appeared to be a cat in the middle of River Road. The cat, lying helpless, was getting run over by the constant traffic, she said.

“He was a goner,” said Norman, 48. “He looked ... I can’t even say it. It hurts my heart.”

Lenser knew his friend’s reaction. Still, he told her not to pull her truck over, to keep her head down, like the other drivers.

She didn’t listen. She got out of her truck, put her right arm in the air to stop traffic, picked up the cat and placed him in the back of her truck.

She figured the cat — bleeding from his nose and mouth — was dead, but she couldn’t allow herself to leave him.

She planned to bury him in her back yard, with other cats.

“That way,” she said, “he could spend the rest of his life playing with them.”

But, just when you think you have cats figured out, they rewrite your plans.

Norman, who couldn’t locate a veterinarian open, placed the cat in a cardboard box, and covered him with a fleece blanket and a used sweater. The cat drank only a few teaspoons of water Saturday.

Norman never lost faith.

On Saturday night, and again at church Sunday, Norman prayed for the cat, though she admits: “I know God is busy and He probably doesn’t think this is a big deal.”

By Sunday afternoon, the cat’s shallow breathing and bleeding had stopped, but he hadn’t moved. Later that night, he ate some cat food — 9Lives, of, course — drank more water, and took steps.

Norman’s reaction? “That cat is a miracle.”

Lenser said Norman’s act of kindness shows that “compassion still lives.”

She plans to have Happy — his adopted name — examined by a veterinarian, then, by the middle of November, if he continues to improve, neutered.

That way, she said, he can play with the other cats in the yard, the ones above ground.

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