Claudia Mustafa hopped in her car two days before Christmas to take her mother from Long Island, New York, to New Jersey. Both of them would not forget the adventure that ultimately took place.
Mustafa told The Dodo, “My mother had been here for a long, and she had picked up my son’s cold.” She advised leaving for home so she could recover on her own.
She knew there may be heavier traffic on that road, but for some reason Mustafa doesn’t quite understand, she chose to take the Bruckner Expressway through the Bronx.
“It was about 00:40 or 00:45 — I remember looking at the time and saying it’s going to take about an hour to get to New Jersey,” Mustafa said. “The sun was glistening a little bit, and I looked ahead, and I saw something furry.”
The furry object was pressed against the median strip separating the two sides of the highway. Mustafa’s first thought was that it was roadkill. But when the car ahead of her passed the object, she saw it was a cat.
“The ears flickered, and I said, ‘Oh my God. It’s not roadkill. It’s actually still alive,’” Mustafa said. “I saw his eyes blinking rapidly because of the wind gusts.”’
There was no shoulder for her to pull into, and the road was clogged with vehicles. Mustafa, however, was unable to pass the cat.
She ignored the honking automobiles behind her and slammed on the brakes, turned on her hazard lights, and walked onto the road.
“I prayed a little bit. I begged the cat not to go because if you do, I’ll have to watch you die and feel guilty, Mustafa recalled.
Thankfully, the cat didn’t move — he seemed petrified with fright. But Mustafa couldn’t believe he’d managed to survive at all.
“There was no space there,” she said. “The cat had rolled up in a little ball up against the concrete median. The cars were passing right by this cat, and when I picked him up, he even had debris on him because he was so afraid to move, like the pebbles and dirt from the road. It was just sad, it was just horrible.”
Mustafa placed the cat into the back seat of her car and started driving again.
Eventually, Mustafa continued, “I went home and pulled him out of the car. He was purring.
Because the cat, now known as Bruckner, was so amiable, Mustafa surmised that he had formerly belonged to someone and had perhaps been purposefully placed on the roadway.
She also observed Bruckner’s severely broken leg.
Mustafa observed that from the ankle down, “his leg was at a 90-degree angle.” He must have been fleeing when a vehicle struck him from behind.
Calling the animal hospital where she brings her dog Cookie, Mustafa was able to get a last-minute appointment. The veterinarian who examined Bruckner had both good and bad news: the good was that he could preserve Bruckner’s leg, but the bad was that it would cost $5,500.
For Mustafa, who is disabled and has a small kid to support, this was a sizable sum of money. The medical personnel then presented alternative possibilities. They recommended transporting Bruckner to a nearby shelter if the fee was too high, but Mustafa was unable to carry out this suggestion.
“I thought, ‘[A shelter is] not going to spend $5,500 to mend his leg or do surgery,’” Mustafa said. “No one is going to want to deal with him, and they’re probably going to euthanize him.”
Mustafa spoke to her husband, and she teared up when she heard what he said.
“My husband said, ‘We should give him a chance of survival, especially if he survived thus far,’” Mustafa said. “I started crying because I was hoping this would be the answer I would get, and we moved forward with the surgery.”
Mustafa said, “The doctor felt we were nuts. We had just paid $1,200 to have a fatty tumor removed from our dog, and now we’re paying $5,500 on a cat that isn’t even ours. This cat will put us in debt, but that’s alright. When the time comes, we’ll take care of it.
The procedure was successful, but Bruckner must be restrained in a box for many months as he recovers. But Mustafa and her husband are doing everything they can to take care of him.
“My husband was really not a cat person, but now he’s like, ‘Oh, look at him, he’s making that sound,’” Mustafa said. “He thought there was something wrong with him, and I said, ‘No, he’s purring. It’s a good thing.’”
Mustafa had initially planned to retain Bruckner, but she’s unsure about their compatibility with Cookie.
Mustafa said that his dog “is like a diva.” She will get up from me and scratch his arm if I even try to embrace my spouse. She’s really envious, so I’m a little worried about her.
For Animals, Inc. volunteered to help Bruckner find a new home should he ever require one, and Mustafa is extremely appreciative of their assistance.
