Last month, a Russian man woke up to find a cat frozen to the ice outside his house.
Sergey Baranov, a knife maker from the small Russian city of Zlatoust, discovered the fluffy cat under his vehicle one cold November morning. The cat, who Baranov believes went under the car to get warm before falling asleep, ended up covered in snow, shivering, and frozen to the ground.
Baranov quickly recruited the help of his wife and began working to free the cat. He held the shaky cat as his wife ran indoors and began filling up a bucket with warm water in attempt to melt the ice around its paws.
“It’s now minus 35 degrees Celsius,” Baranov says in the video he recorded throughout the rescue. “You see how cold our winter is if even cats get frozen outside.”
After just two buckets of water, the cat’s front paws were free. Its back paws, however, had sunk a full six centimetres into the now-frozen snow. Baranov’s wife had to haul another five buckets of warm water outside to unstick its back paws. The couple also had a thick blanket on hand, which they wrapped the cat in when it was freed a mere seven minutes later.
At first the cat couldn’t move its paws, so Baranov’s wife called the local vet. According to reports, he gave the cat an anti-inflammatory shot, and it was walking later that day. The cat is now on antibiotics and will likely need to have part of its tail removed, but it’s otherwise okay.
Baranov captured the entire rescue on video, later telling Buzzfeed News that he decided to share it on Youtube to encourage others to be kind.
Not long after Baranov posted the video, views poured in from around the world. It’s now been watched more than a million times, and it’s safe to say that many were inspired by Baranov’s good deed.
“…I just wanted to tell you that it makes me so happy that you two are decent human beings. Thank you for helping that cat. Thanks for being a good person,” one Youtube user commented.
“Faith in humanity restored,” another said.
But the video does more than inspire others to help animals in need—it also serves as an excellent reminder to motorists.
As Baranov says during the video: “Always check what’s under your cars before you start the engine.”
