Posted on 12/06/2012 9:02:58 AM PST by EinNYC
A 53-year-old Bronx man fell to his death trying to rescue a cat from a tree early Monday, police sources said.
Marcial Rios-Aguilar scaled the tree at Bronx Park East and Allerton Ave. in Bronxwood at 3 a.m. using a rope, police said.
The branch gave way and Rios-Aguilar died. The feline remained stranded in the tree.
"He loves animals. He was a nice man,” said Manuel Cabrera, 36, whose wife is Rios-Aguilar’s cousin. “He helps people all the time."
Six relatives and friends gathered at the tree with flowers and candles to make a makeshift memorial. The rope Rios-Aguilar used still dangled overhead, near the spooked tabby.
They prayed, cried and described the unemployed Rios-Aguilar as a kindhearted, generous man who kept pet turtles and birds, and was known to buy food for stray cats.
“He was very caring towards our kids," said Lourdes Castro, 34, Cabrera’s wife.
Rios-Aguilar, who moved to the U.S. from Mexico 20 years ago, often would go out late rooting around for recyclables.
“We are not sure why he was there — he likes to go out to collect metal from the garbage,” Cabrera said. “Whatever money he gets he sends to his mother in Mexico. He spoke to her just yesterday."
The super of Cabrera’s buildng, accompanied by two police detectives, broke the awful news to him early this morning.
“I was in shock. I couldn't say anything,” Cabrera said. “We were like brothers."
Rios-Aguilar’s family will send his body back to Mexico.
Around 12:30 p.m. Monday, the Fire Department arrived to rescue the kitty. [and took it to NYC Animal Care & Control]
When the tabby is saved, he or she can’t expect a hero’s welcome. When asked if she would adopt the cat should it come down for the tree, Castro gave an emphatic “No!”
You can’t be concerned about both? We have an obligation to protect the helpless. I’d say both qualify.
Its all about values. This country in fact does value animals to a degree that emotional concern for their “well being” far outweighs any demonstated outrage for the terrible slaughter of human life that has occurred in the last forty years. In fact vegetarianism has more spiritual meaning for some than traditional religion. Bottom line is that whatever your perspective, a culture that embraces values contrary to Darwinian law soon ceases to exist.
"collectors" usually cruise neighborhoods in the early morning hours on garbage collection days.....
Years ago my company had an eccentric engineer who would show up for work with his battered old station wagon filled with stuff he had collected on his way to work.
As a side note, both his son and his wife committed suicide by lying down on railroad tracks.......not at the same time but about a year apart. That was strange
You took the words right off of my keyboard!!
I hate it when others hijack threads for their own personal soapbox for their own personal cause.
With that said, kitty will come down when he’s ready. My cat went up a tree for 2 days when there were strangers in our yard doing construction on the house —saw her up there, her tail was switching back and forth and she looked like she was mocking us!! I think she wanted the attention. When she got good and hungry, she found her way down
Kindly note that this is a thread about a man who died trying to rescue his cat. There is absolutely no connection to abortion, yet you somehow found it possible to do so. Do you haunt the various threads trying to insert your feelings about abortion?
The kitten WAS removed from the tree by the fire department, taken to the NYC Animal Care & Control center and is now on the EUTHANASIA LIST for lack of space in the facility. I posted this story to try and rustle up anyone who could give the kitten a home and get him out of the ACC before they kill him, which will only be probably a few hours away. Look at his picture in the original source. He is ADORABLE and bright eyed.
You know, I'm not so sure about that. That's what I always thought, but someone recently explained to me that a cat's claws grow in such a manner that it's easy to climb a tree, but not to come down it. Hope they're wrong.
I’d take him in a heartbeat - but I live in California.
What is your home limit?
We have had countless outdoor cats over the years. The yard is full of 80+ foot tall trees. Almost every day, you would see a couple in a few different trees for what ever reason. A few would sleep in the tree at night, and come down in the day to eat. Others would be up in the trees looking for birds. Sometimes you would see five or six in one tree.
In the past 30 some years, I would have to say that we have had ZERO cats we have had to rescue out of the trees.
They can be 60 feet up in the tree and they will be at the base before you make it there, if they want to greet you. If they don’t come down, then they evidently don’t want to.
I’ve never seen a cat skeleton in a tree, EVER.
To quote St. Francis, "If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men."
Perhaps the reason we are so desensitized to the horror of abortion is that too many people failed to place a high enough value on all life.
by lying down on railroad tracks.....He was an engineer, obviously MURDER.
more SANDY victims? was the tree weakened due to the storm?
Hope the cat makes it,, condolences to the family.
The most effective means of getting a cat from a tree is a BB gun. Afew stings will convince the cat that the ground is safer
We've had one of our cats up a 20' tree after being chased by a dog, but finally had to get our gardener with one of those extra long ladders climb up and get him.
“I have never seen a cat able to get up a tree, that has been unable to get down.”
I almost fell to my death once because my distraught girlfriend insisted that her cat would die because it couldn’t get down.
Some nights later, one of my dumbest friends, a landscaper, made a very sage observation over some beers. He said, “I’ve never seen a cat skeleton up in a tree.”
I’ve repeated that to various people over the years who were worried about their cats in a tree and asked me to help. They have no response
When you look up Free Republic on the Internet , it says that it is a grass-roots site for conservatives. You are on a site dedicated to exploring conservative thought. I applaud you for having compassion on this cat, but don’t be upset if conservative thought shows up on your post. Now, if this was the kitty rescue site, well then, get after them.
It may appear that there is no “cost” involved in posting here to ask people to provide a home for this cat, but there actually is. There is an “Opportunity Cost” involved in every decision and action. I like cats and I hope this cat is rescued. I agree that it would be a shame for this man to have died only to have the cat die. Compassionate people will read your post and become concerned about this cat. Their time and concern is actually a cost. Time is a resource and each of us only has so much of it. To devote time to this cat is to decide to not devote time to another concern such as abortion. It “costs” the aborted babies the time that people could devote to them. The compassion shown for this cat “costs” the aborted babies the compassion that could have been shown to them. I think that your time and compassion are not poorly spent in this concern about the cat. So, I’ve bored you to tears trying to defend people who post with other concerns. Please forgive me if my attempt to explain this has only just ticked you off. I hope you find a home for the cat.
Poor guy. RIP.
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