Published Oct 7, 2026
Kathy Pike / Ames Animal Shelter
A little gray tabby kitten’s terrifying ordeal stuck inside the grille of a car on a sweltering Iowa summer day has found her happy ending—with the family of the tow truck driver who rescued her!
The incident happened in late July, when a woman was waiting in a drive-thru line at Scooter’s Coffee in the Ames, Iowa area. She heard the cries of an animal in distress, and they were coming from a kitten trapped behind the front grille of her Honda, according to The Washington Post. The poor baby was crying and panting under the 96-degree afternoon sun, and she urgently needed rescue.
A crowd of concerned people gathered around the car, trying to figure out how to save the kitten, which the driver said was not hers. Meanwhile, a Scooter’s Coffee employee called for help. Kathy Pike, an animal services officer with Ames Animal Services, rushed to the scene and, seeing the panting kitten with a bright red tongue, knew how urgent it was that the kitten be freed. Pike examined the car to figure out where and how the kitten got stuck behind the grille and tried to find an escape route, but to no avail.
Pike tells Cats.com in an interview that she had seen felines stuck in cars before, but never anything quite like this, with the kitten trapped behind an inaccessible grille.
“How did you get in there? … That is the question of the day,” Pike says. “How did you get there, and how can we get you out?”
Kathy Pike / Ames Animal Shelter
Pike could only stick a few of her fingers behind the grille, and she knew she needed to call for mechanical help to dismantle the front of the car. She called Central Iowa Towing and Recovery. Meanwhile, she poured some water over the grille so the poor kitten could lick it and cool down a little.
Tow truck driver Jordan McKnight and coworker Cole Denning rushed to the coffee shop to try to save the kitten’s life.
“I’ve never gotten a call like that in my life,” McKnight, 38, told The Washington Post.
The tow employees raised the front of the car off the ground to examine the underside, and they concluded that the only way to remove the kitten was to disassemble the whole front clip of the car. Within about 15 minutes, McKnight and Denning freed the kitten, who was still alive but appeared to be suffering from heatstroke, which can be deadly. Pike drenched the baby in water and brought her straight to a veterinarian. By the time she arrived at the nearby clinic after a few minutes, the kitten was no longer open-mouthed breathing, but she had a temperature of 105°F (normal is about 101°F to 102°F). The baby was on the verge of brain damage, but the rescuers saved her just in time: Except for a blister on a rear paw pad, the kitten—who was estimated to be about 2 months old and weighed just under 2 pounds—was going to be OK, the vet said.
The kitten, who had likely crawled into the car somehow before the driver left her home, returned to Ames Animal Shelter, where she drew a lot of interest from the news coverage. Pike named her Fika, a Swedish word referring to a meaningful coffee or tea break with friends and family. Fika was very sweet and affectionate.
Kathy Pike / Ames Animal Shelter
“I think she was just so thankful,” Pike says.
Her rescuer—McKnight, who is a husband and the father of a toddler girl—felt that the encounter came from the Cat Distribution System, which chose his family to adopt the kitten. The McKnight family renamed Fika ‘Little Dolly’—which seems even more special after beloved icon Dolly Parton passed away on August 25.
McKnight was not available for an interview, but we wish Little Dolly a long and happy life with the McKnight family.
While the summer is almost over for 2026 and temperatures are cooling, keep the story of Fika/Little Dolly in mind if you encounter a cat trapped in a car, either on the exterior or inside, where temperatures rise to dangerous levels quickly. Pike recommends cooling an overheated feline with room-temperature water; very cold water may seem refreshing, but it can shock the cat, she says.
“The safest place for a friendly personal pet would probably be indoors, or at least supervised outdoors,” Pike says. “If you do see a animal that is suffering from heatstroke, be sure you’re providing it with a little water, on the paws and tongue. They don’t sweat like we do.”
Pike says it’s also a good idea in either hot or cold weather—or when your vehicle has been sitting unused for a while – to honk your horn before driving it, to make sure there aren’t any critters underneath the vehicle or hidden in the engine bay or behind the grille.
