NEW YORK, NY -- 02/21/08 --
Christopher Cuddy's assignments for Con Edison
sometimes place him in the recesses of Manhattan's caverns, reading
electric meters in remote emergency exits of subway tunnels.
The two-year veteran occasionally sees four-legged critters scampering
underground, but on a recent foray, his keen eye spotted something unusual:
a blue collar on a furtive black cat, suggesting a link to a news story he
remembered from three weeks earlier; after a visit to a veterinarian, a
straphanger's kitten leaped from a pet carrier onto a midtown platform,
capping the flight with a jump-down to the tracks and a beeline to
oblivion, leaving her owner distraught.
Twenty-six days later, after Cuddy's sighting re-alerted transit workers, a
seven-month-old kitten named Georgia was found in the tunnels under midtown
Manhattan and reunited with owner Ashley Phillips. Cuddy shared in a
three-way $1,500-donated reward as a result, but elected to turn over his
share to the ASPCA. "I was just happy she was recovered," Cuddy said.
"It's an especially heartwarming story," said Marilyn Caselli, Con Edison's
senior vice president for Customer Operations, "one that underscores the
value of careful observance combined with elements of benevolent chance.
Nothing in a corporate mission statement covers what Chris set in motion,
yet he's made literally thousands of people feel good as a result of what
he did."
When the kitten, minus one life of nine, was ultimately recovered by
transit workers Mark Dalessio and Efrain LaPorte, she was suffering from a
fractured back leg and dehydration, ailments treated by doctors at Fifth
Avenue Veterinary Specialists.
"I didn't want to raise false hopes when I first spotted her," said the
26-year-old Cuddy, who splits his time between Bensonhurst in Brooklyn and
Albrightsville in Pennsylvania, where the rambling countryside is slightly
more hospitable for him and his wife and their golden retriever. "I enjoy
the unique nature of my job, knowing that I get to traverse a part of the
city that few others see. It wasn't quite as dramatic as sighting an
alligator in the sewer system, but I was still quite excited with the
prospect of the lost kitten's recovery.
"I got the call on a Saturday night," he said of the good news. "I was
speechless, but ecstatic."
Contact:
Media Relations
212-460-4111
