A Franklin Square cat named Lola spent about five days trapped upside down behind a wall in her family's old apartment, surviving without food or water until a Long Island rescuer cut her free. John DeBacker, known locally for his animal rescues, pulled the cat backward through a narrow hole after locating her with an endoscopic camera, ending an ordeal that left even him losing hope she would come out alive.
A Hiding Spot Turns Into a Trap
According to the New York Post, Lola's family had been moving out of their second-floor apartment in Franklin Square when the cat ducked under a floorboard to hide. From there, she fell behind a first-floor wall and became trapped upside down for most of the five days that followed. DeBacker and his team were called in to rescue her, and they first tried a food-and-camera trap to lure her out, but the outlet reports Lola avoided it whenever she emerged at night.
With the trap failing, DeBacker and a contractor turned to an electric saw to begin cutting into the wall, per the same account. He and his team eventually located Lola with an endoscopic camera and switched to a quieter drill once she appeared to grow nervous at the noise. “After two weeks we did not want to lose the cat again,” DeBacker said, according to the report — though the timeline described elsewhere in the account places Lola's confinement at about five days. DeBacker ultimately pulled her backward through the narrow opening and placed her in a towel-lined crate.
Why the Cat Could Survive Days Without Food or Water
Emergency veterinarians who examined Lola found insulation in her body, and the newspaper's report notes she had apparently eaten insulation while trapped. DeBacker called her survival “pretty miraculous.”
Food deprivation carries its own separate danger. Veterinary internal medicine experts note that when a cat goes without food for 24 to 72 hours, its body rapidly mobilizes fat stores to the liver, creating a serious risk of hepatic lipidosis, or fatty liver disease, as explained by PetMD. That risk may be part of why Lola struggled with a poor appetite after returning home, prompting her family to take her back to the veterinarian to determine the cause. Cats with hepatic lipidosis may be treated with feeding tubes to provide nutrition, according to the Cat & Bird Clinic.
A Rescuer With a Long Track Record
DeBacker serves as Vice President of Long Island Cat/Kitten Solution, a Syosset-based non-profit founded in 2006, per ProPublica's nonprofit records. He has rescued cats for at least 15 years and keeps four cats of his own. His prior rescues include freeing a kitten stuck in a car's undercarriage in Huntington after a five-mile drive in May 2025, and Hoodline previously covered a cat rescue on LIRR tracks in April 2026.
Why do volunteers like DeBacker end up handling cases like Lola's instead of a town shelter? Under New York State law, municipalities are not legally required to license or shelter stray and feral cats, which shifts much of that responsibility onto regional non-profits, according to the Town of North Hempstead.
Preventing the Next Moving-Day Escape
DeBacker advised cat owners to secure their pets before moving begins, noting that the process can scare cats into hiding. Feline behavior specialists at the San Francisco SPCA say moving disrupts a cat's sense of territory so severely that many instinctively seek dark, enclosed spaces as a coping mechanism. The ASPCA's official pet moving guidelines recommend isolating cats in a locked safe room, such as a bathroom, or keeping them secured in travel carriers throughout packing and moving days to prevent exactly the kind of panic-driven hiding that led Lola under the floorboards.
