A cat that survived being trapped under floorboards of a derelict house for two months was saved when vets covered him in bubble wrap and put SOCKS on his paws.
Three-year-old Thor went missing from his home and his worried owners were on the verge of giving up hope of seeing him again.
But builders renovating a house opposite found the black-and-white puss after they heard faint meowing coming from under the floorboards.
They discovered Thor, who weighed just 2.4kg, barely breathing and rushed him to a vets who covered him in bubble wrap and put socks on him to keep him warm.
Thor spent ten days in intensive care and seven months of further treatment at Linnaeus-owned St Anne’s Vets in Eastbourne, East Sussex.
Clinical director Simon Devile said: “Builders found Thor trapped under floorboards in a house near to where his owners lived and rushed him straight to us.
“He was completely collapsed, so cold to the touch, his mucus membranes were extremely pale and his capillary refill time was over three seconds, which is very bad.
“His pupils were dilated and not reactive to light, his heart rate was only 10bpm while his blood pressure and temperature were too low to register.
“We were all shocked and honestly didn’t know how he was still alive.
“I’ve never seen a patient with a heart rate of just 10bpm – certainly not one that has gone on to survive.
“We gave him an oxygen mask, heat pads, knitted socks and wrapped him in bubble wrap.
“We even managed to get an intravenous cannula in him, despite him being so thin and frail, and also got warmed fluids into him.
“He was given adrenaline and atropine and thankfully both his heart rate and his blood pressure had normalised inside 30 minutes.
“Nevertheless, Thor still had a poor prognosis. We didn’t know if he was going to be brain damaged but his owner wanted us to do everything we could to save him and see what happened once he stabilised.”
Incredibly, after seven months of treatment – including teaching the cat how to eat again – Thor has made a full recovery.
Delighted owner Bianca Burchett, 34, said: “It is an unbelievable story and I’m so grateful to the vets at St Anne’s for caring and working so hard and for so long to save Thor.
“To see him come back to life and watch him slowly return to being his usual self again has been incredible. I honestly don’t know how he made it. It really is amazing.
“It was so unusual for Thor not to come home, he was rarely out for more than an hour at a time, so when he still wasn’t back the following morning, we all panicked.
“We had 300 fliers printed and put them up all over the neighbourhood, we knocked on doors and I was always out walking, with my five-month-old baby in the carrier in front of me, searching for him.
“Almost eight weeks later, a builder who was working on a house across the road, came and knocked on my window and asked ‘Are you still looking for your cat? We’ve just heard one meowing under the floorboards’.
“My heart was pounding and I was in shock; I couldn’t believe it. I went across the road thinking he must have been on an amazing adventure for two months, not what a state he might be in.
“When I walked in, the builders were ripping up the floorboards and then they pulled out this tiny, painfully thin cat and I just burst into tears.
“Bless the builder, though, he put Thor in a box, jumped in his van and drove him straight to St Anne’s, while I rushed home so we could follow him down.
“The vets were very clear. They explained how close to death he was, that he might be brain damaged and said, ‘Don’t get your hopes up’ but we just couldn’t give up on our baby Thor.
“Three days after he was found, we were finally able to see him and give him a cuddle. My husband and I shed so many tears but it was all worth it.”
