Construction workers rescue kitten from Hudson River

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) — While crews from D.A. Collins were working on the support beams of the Dunn Memorial Bridge, which connects Albany and Rensselaer, they heard a splash in the water below. One of the workers went to check out the noise when he encountered an unusual sight: a kitten in the Hudson River.

“It fell from the bridge and the one guy was up in the man lift and he yelled down to us and two guys went out in a row boat to see what it was. They thought it was a bird but it ended up being a kitten,” says Patrick Iovino who was working on the bridge at the time.

Dunny, as the six-week-old kitten is now called after the Dunn Memorial Bridge, dropped from a height of around 60 to 70 feet into the Hudson River. A fall from that height can be fatal for a human.

The workers who rescued the feline say they believe he was thrown from a car driving over the bridge. Upon rescuing Dunny, the site supervisor called Tom Urban, an engineer-in-charge with the New York State Department of Transportation, who jumped on the chance to keep the cat.

“As soon as I heard about it, I called the foreman and I said I want that cat,” Urban says, “and I immediately drove down here [to the Hudson River] and he gave me a very dry cat because they took very good care of him.” 

Tom and his wife Michelle have a few cats of their own. All of which are rescues. They say Dunny, who suffered no injuries from the fall, is slowly warming up to their family. “He was pretty quiet but now he’s very vocal and he likes chasing dust bunnies around the house. I didn’t know I had that many dust bunnies but now I do.” 

The Urbans say they are incredibly grateful for the workers from D.A. Collins, saying without their quick thinking, Dunny would have had a slim chance of making it out of the water and finding a new forever home.