A routine traffic stop in Southern Utah took an unexpected turn for a family from Newcastle during their road trip back home. Jennifer Hayes, who had been visiting family, found herself pulled over by Deputy Allen from the Washington County Sheriff’s Office in La Verkin.
“I saw that I was getting pulled over and thought ‘oh no’,” recalled Jennifer Hayes.
Deputy Allen initially stopped Hayes for a minor traffic violation, but what transpired next was far from ordinary. As he approached the vehicle, he noticed an unusual sound—soft purring emanating from within the car. Curiosity piqued, he investigated further.
“It was just a simple traffic stop for a minor violation,” Deputy Allen explained. “I could hear a cat purring, and I thought that was super odd. It’s not a standard thing.”
Upon reaching the front of Hayes’ car, Deputy Allen was met with an astonishing sight—a furry paw protruding from the car’s grill. On his body camera footage, he can be heard exclaiming that he had found a gray cat. Jennifer Hayes instantly confirmed, “Yup! It’s Gus.”
“She let me know that her cat has been missing for a couple of days,” Deputy Allen recounted.
According to Hayes, their family cat, Gus, had gone missing a day and a half earlier. In that time, they had covered approximately 200 miles on their journey.
“We were hearing meowing but it just didn’t dawn on me that it might have been Gus because I had checked the engine,” Hayes explained. “It was so sad, I mean he was like stuck in like the grill area.”
The entire heartwarming rescue operation was captured on Deputy Allen’s body camera. The footage shows the two individuals delicately extricating the cat from the car’s grill.
“I’ve got both feet, can you poke that arm? Yeah, there we go. Oh Gus! You got him? Are you okay?” they can be heard saying.
Remarkably, the six-month-old cat, Gus, emerged from the ordeal unscathed. It was the reunion that the Hayes family had fervently hoped for.
“My son was saying, of course, that it’s an answer to a prayer and that thank goodness we got pulled over,” Hayes expressed. “I mean he really did see Deputy Allen as the hero.”
Deputy Allen, humbled by the experience, regards the title of hero with a sense of responsibility, affirming that, despite the unusual circumstances, he is grateful to have been the one making that fateful traffic stop.
“I think next time I will handle it exactly the same way,” Deputy Allen affirmed.
