Tree-Trimmers Go Out on Limb to Rescue a Cat

When Coco was gently lowered by rope Sunday from a 75-foot palm, she represented more than another cat out of a tree. At least she did to the crowd of 20 holding vigil under the tree.

She stood for community effort. She symbolized blind faith. She meant success for an unlikely team that included her owner and friends, residents of a drug recovery house, a dedicated parks employee and two tenacious tree-trimmers.

The slender, black cat had been trapped for four days atop the palm. Most of her rescuers couldn’t even see her (hence the blind faith). They only heard the weak mewing emerging from inside the dried fronds of an unkempt palm.

That was enough to mobilize this West Bay Street neighborhood, where people waited on curbs and lawns, hoping for Coco’s survival.

“It’s the first time that I ever saw people that were so concerned,” said city parks employee Albert Tirre. “They all stuck together.

Finally, a tree-trimmer named Eulolio Basques, 59, rescued Coco after spending hours hacking away at dead fronds so sharp that they scratched his arms and bloodied his forehead. He was tired, sweaty and coated in sawdust, but Coco’s owner hugged him, the cat cradled in her arms.

“Thank you!” she said exultantly.

No one is quite sure how Coco, an 11-month-old cat that usually shuns trees, came to climb the unkempt palm. She disappeared from her Melody Lane home late Wednesday, and her owner, Darlene Oser, combed the streets in vain. The first breakthrough came Saturday when she stood on a corner, calling, “Coco, Coco. . . .”

A Bay House resident heard mewing from atop a palm next to the home for 11 people recovering from alcohol and drug addiction. “He said, ‘Hey, there’s a cat there answering back,’ ” another resident recalled.

Oser and her supporters pondered how to get Coco back to firm ground. They called the city parks department, and Tirre, 61, came by with a cherry picker that reached high into the air--but not far enough. So Tirre asked for a can of tuna, lodging the can amid the fronds and spreading them with fish.

When Tirre went home that night, he didn’t tell his wife about Coco. After all, he has two cats himself, and “I couldn’t tell her that I left a cat in a palm tree.” He lost sleep. So did others. Some prayed.

Oser wanted to stay all night at the palm, wrapped in a blanket in the cold air. But a Bay House resident urged her to go home, keeping vigil herself at a window near the tree, ringing a bell and calling Coco’s name, listening hard for the cat’s meow.

Sunday morning, they found an empty can of tuna under the palm.

So Oser hired Miguel Gomez of MG Landscaping, and he and Basques took turns scaling the tree, strapped to the trunk, hacking away at fronds for 4 1/2 hours.

“Coco, talk to me,” Oser entreated.

A flash of red collar and black fur appeared amid the fronds.

“She poked her head out!” called Bay House manager Michael O’Grady.

Things moved fast after that. Basques searched through the frond cocoon, and suddenly Coco was in his arms. He gently lowered the cat to the ground in a makeshift sling, wrapped in her own brown towel.

As her owner stroked her, Coco’s new fans crowded around, and a Bay House resident offered a soup bowl filled with water.

Coco looked the most relaxed of the bunch. “So calm!” an admirer said.

Oser held the cat tight to her chest. “You can’t feel her heart, though, like I can.”

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Deborah Schoch can be reached by calling (714) 966-5813 or by e-mail at deborah.schoch@latimes.com.