VIDEO: Man climbs 60 feet to save cat stuck in a tree for five days
Daniel Miller doesn't have your typical job.
Five years ago, he turned his tree-climbing hobby into a career.
Now, the Virginia man is being recognized for using his climbing skills to rescue a cat, which was stuck 60 feet above the ground for more than five days.
It all started with Furry Friends Animal Rescue got a call about the cat.
"The cat was lucky it had survived," Robin Bradfield of Furry Friends Animal Rescue told WSHV. "It had survived major storms, cold weather, hot weather, and we put another desperate plea out for help."
When first responders couldn't get to the cat, someone reached out to Miller.
"I got a text message from one of my friends when I got home, and it was like 12 o'clock that said, 'Hey, can you come to get a cat out of a tree that's like 90 feet up in a tree?' And I was like, 'Right now?' And she said, 'Yeah, right now. He's been there for five days.' And I was like, 'Alright, where?'"
Once he reached the cat, Miller said he was cutting the branch the cat was sitting on when it snapped.
"And it went down in this other tree where I didn't want it to go and then he climbed out and strapped on the tree and looked at me and went 'meow' and I was like, you have got to be kidding me," Miller said.
From there, Miller was eventually able to lower the cat down using a bag.
The cat was taken to a local veterinarian and seems to be healthy.
"We appreciate it and we are going to do something special for (Daniel), we just haven't figured out what yet," Bradfield said.