Port Authority Worker Adopts Kitten Rescued From Lincoln Tunnel

SECAUCUS, NJ — Wednesday was supposed to be just another day at work for Chris Kerrigan.

The 37-year-old New Milford man is an employee with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Every day, it's his job to sit in a little room carved into the side of the Lincoln Tunnel and monitor the constant traffic flowing through its three tubes. The cell is about the width of a beach chair, he says and just big enough to stand up in. In his three-year career with the Port Authority, Kerrigan has responded to broken-down vehicles, flat tires and medical emergencies, all at 90 feet below the surface of the Hudson River and with traffic flying by.

But he never expected to find a lost kitten inside the tunnel, much less become its new owner.

Yet that's exactly what somebody found inside the Lincoln Tunnel this past Wednesday, Aug. 29: A driver called in to say they noticed the small, terrified kitten curled up on the catwalk — of all places — about 400 feet inside the tunnel from the New York City entrance.

The catwalk is the extremely small walkway on the side of the tunnel. Kerrigan said he thinks the cat meandered in from the tunnel entrance in New York and then was too terrified to go any farther.

"I think the kitten knew it was in danger," said Kerrigan. "One foot the wrong way and it could have been hit by a car or a bus and just killed instantly. Nobody would ever have known."

The kitten was in the center tube, which holds all the commuter bus traffic coming into Manhattan. It was discovered at about 9:30/10 a.m. on Wednesday, just after the morning rush hour had finished.

"It was my supervisor, Maeghan Grant, who went in there and rescued him. She just walked along the catwalk and grabbed him," said Kerrigan. "He scratched her hands up pretty bad, but I think he knew he had to be saved."

The tiny male kitten was brought to the Port Authority's garage on the New York side. There, PA workers gave it a bowl of water and some cooked chicken, cut into small bites. The animal was petrified at first, but gradually its hunger won over and soon it was eating away with gusto, he said.

Many calls later to local animal rescue groups and a North Bergen cat and dog rescue group was the only agency that said could take the cat, Kerrigan said. As of Thursday, the kitten is still being examined and given vaccines; he had some "gook" around his eyes that needs to be checked out. But Kerrigan volunteered to adopt him once he's given a clean bill of health.

"I'm an animal lover and I love cats. I just had to take him in after I saw him and what he's been through," he told Patch. "I'm also a history buff, so I named him Abe, for Abraham Lincoln after where he was found. Don't worry, half the guys at the PA garage didn't get it, either."

Also some more good news is headed Kerrigan's way: After three years sitting under the Hudson River in the Lincoln Tunnel tubes, he just got a transfer next week to the opposite side of spectrum: the George Washington bridge.

"It actually was fine working down there," he said. "But it will be nice to have a change."