Cool Cat Saves the Day Not Just Once, but Twice

"It didn't surprise me that Ivory sounded the alarm," she said. "She's the most remarkable cat I've ever met."Dogs aren't the only pets that save their owners' lives; cats do, too.

Ivory, a normally quiet and reserved Siamese, sprang into action on two separate occasions when her beloved owner's life was in peril.

The first time was in the fall of 2001 when, around 2 a.m., an electrical fire broke out inside Scott Grigas' second floor apartment in Fairfield, Iowa.

As black smoke began filling the tiny bedroom, Grigas unknowingly lay fast asleep, breathing in the toxic fumes.

His other cats, Kizmet and Frankie, jumped out of an open window and onto a neighboring roof. But Ivory stayed behind to warn her sleeping owner.

At first, the jet black cat jumped on his chest, howling and hitting him in the chin to no avail. So she purposefully knocked over a glass of water that fell directly on top of him, snapping him out of a sound sleep.

"As I became more awake I jumped from the bed, noticing the smoke," recalls Grigas, who then woke up his roommate.

The men, along with Ivory and his roommate's beagle, safely escaped out a window and onto a neighboring building's rooftop.

A firefighter battling the blaze told Grigas that he was one lucky guy. He said a few more minutes inside the burning building and Grigas would have died from smoke inhalation.

About a year later Grigas hit a rough spot in his life, and asked his mother, Joanne Grigas, if she'd temporarily care for the jet black feline while he worked out a few things.

Without hesitation, Joanne agreed.

"Ivory opened up my heart in a very big way," she says. "She just brings incredible joy into my life."

Months later, knowing the close bond the two now shared, Scott insisted Ivory permanently live with her.

He regularly visited, of course. And last summer Scott spent a few weeks with his fiance, Ting, at his mother's Fairfield, Iowa home, staying in the upstairs bedroom. Ivory happily curled-up on the couple's bed each night.

Then, late one evening,Ting burst into Joanne's bedroom in tears, saying something was terribly wrong with Scott.

"His skin was cold and clammy, and he couldn't talk," Joanne recalls of her diabetic son's condition.

She called for an ambulance, then grabbed a can of frozen orange juice before running upstairs to the spare bedroom.

Scott's blood sugar level had dropped dangerously low. To raise it back up, Joanne began spooning small amounts of juice concentrate into his mouth until paramedics arrived. Meanwhile Ivory, who had woke Ting by yowling, now sat calmly in the corner of the bedroom.

If Scott's grave condition had gone undetected until morning, he would have slipped into a coma.

Joanne credits the shy feline - who normally doesn't make a peep -- with saving her only son's life.

"It didn't surprise me that Ivory sounded the alarm," she said. "She's the most remarkable cat I've ever met."

Image Source: Maryann Mott