Purring cat rescued from BMW car engine

Wendy Jawor of Newport Coast is accustomed to hearing the purr of her BMW X-5’s engine, but this was a different kind of sound.

Jawor, a teacher at Newport Heights Elementary School, was leaving for work at 7 a.m. Friday when she heard meowing from underneath the SUV she had parked in her driveway and realized a cat was somewhere in or around the engine.

Jawor opened the hood of the car, put out some food, and got a ride to work so she could leave the car behind, hoping the cat would somehow find its way out.

She also called in reinforcements — neighbors Kelly Jawor and Julie Connelly.

Connelly called animal control, but the officers who responded determined that the cat was stuck, and no amount of prodding and poking was going to get it out.

Kelly Jawor decided to call local BMW dealerships to see if they would send a mechanic out to help, since it appeared to her that taking the car apart was the only way to get the cat out.

By now, the cat had been trapped for at least three hours.

Crevier BMW in Santa Ana was eager to help and connected her with its roadside assistance service. Mechanic Josh Sorenson, who is allergic to cats, arrived on the scene 20 minutes later.

Sorenson took off the “belly pan” — which sits directly under the engine in the SUV — and the cat, who had been wedged between the pan and the engine, ran out and headed down the driveway and into Wendy Jawor’s backyard.

Sorenson — good Samaritan that he was, says Jawor — was by now suffering the effects of his cat allergies, but helped them get the cat into a crate before he left.

Once the cat was in custody, Wendy Jawor called another friend who picked it up and took it to the Cat Clinic of Orange County in Costa Mesa to see if it might have a microchip that could help identify it and locate its owner.

According to Jawor, a microchip wasn’t necessary.

Several workers at the clinic immediately recognized the cat, named Ricky, as one they had treated before.

Jawor says they were told that Ricky was being cared for by a man at a nearby apartment complex where the cat’s owner, who died last year, had lived.

Clinic workers said the cat was being cleaned up and checked over, and that the man was coming by to pick it up and take it home.