Massachusetts Vets Shocked To Find Who Was Hiding Inside A Ball Of Hardened Foam

Eli isn’t just any cat. He’s the orange fluff who knows everyone on the block. Most days, you can spot him making his rounds, saying hello to neighbors before heading home for a nap.

So when Eli suddenly disappeared one day, it wasn’t just his mom who noticed. His whole Boston neighborhood was left wondering where their little buddy had gone.

No one could’ve guessed the bizarre mess he was about to be found in.

At first, Eli’s mom, Lea Perugini, assumed he was out on his usual neighborhood rounds. But as the hours passed with no sign of him, worry started to set in.

She grabbed her coat and began checking every spot she thought he might be hiding. That’s when she noticed a foam insulation truck parked at the house next door.

It had been there all day, but she didn’t think much of it. Until her phone rang.

Her roommate had just arrived home and spotted an animal rescue worker in the neighbor’s yard… holding a cat. A cat covered in foam. And that cat was Eli.

Lea sprinted home as fast as she could. When she saw him, she was stunned.

Eli looked like he’d been caught in the middle of a marshmallow explosion. His fur was completely encased in hardened spray foam.

It turned out he had wandered into the neighbor’s attic while they were spraying insulation. Curious as ever, he must have thought it was worth exploring until things took a bad turn.

Lea rushed him to the VEG Emergency Vet in Newton, calling ahead to warn them about the sticky situation.

Dr. Thamires Nunes was in the middle of other emergencies when she got the call, but nothing could have prepared her for the sight of Eli.

His entire face was covered in rock-hard foam, with just a small opening left for him to breathe. Somehow, he had managed to clear just enough space to survive.

The vet team immediately sedated him and started working, as Dr. Nunes shared in an interview:

“We felt the time crunch. We just started hacking along. And it was a team of five or six nurses. Everybody got some tool that they could find in the hospital to be able to do this. Most of it was like breaking pieces of foam. Others were shaving.”

They were also worried about whether the foam had reached his eyes or if he had swallowed any.

Dr. Nunes even contacted the ASPCA poison control hotline for advice.

Luckily, the foam wasn’t toxic, and Eli’s thick fur had acted like a barrier, keeping it from sticking to his skin. It clung to his coat instead, another stroke of luck.

By the time they finished, Eli’s body had been shaved. He looked like a sphynx.

Over the next couple of months, his soft orange fur slowly grew back in, each week bringing him closer to his old, majestic self.

Before long, he was once again the fluffy little lion who ruled the block, lounging on the front steps and keeping an eye on the neighborhood like nothing had ever happened. Lea shared:

“He’s like the neighborhood celebrity cat.”

And it’s true. Ever since his close call, everyone seems to love him even more!