Hello everyone,
We’ve just lost our young, 10-month-old Queen in a tragic accident. We adopted her this summer along with her brother Eaggle and sister Kiss after completely falling in love with this purring, inseparable trio of siblings.
Knowing that the kittens loved to scuttle under the sofa bed to play when it was open, we’re usually in the habit of checking before closing it... But for the last few days, as the girls were in heat while waiting to be spayed, they’d been sleeping in my daughter’s bedroom while the male of the bunch stayed with me. There are four doors and two hallways between the two rooms.
Like every morning, I glanced up at my daughter’s high sleeper bed (without looking too closely as I don't have a head for heights) to make sure the 'girls' were there, and let Eaggle out into the garden. I thought all our cats were out of the living room, and for once, I closed the sofa bed in one quick motion without checking under the mattress. I didn't feel any resistance and didn't hear a single thing.
Our sweet, adorable, and mischievous little Queen was gone in the blink of an eye.
I don’t know what I mistook for her fur on my daughter’s bed, and I still don’t know how she managed to get into the living room. I keep replaying the moment I closed that bloody sofa... and the horrific moment we found her, too late.
After I picked her up, I looked at her little body from every angle and worked the mechanism several times to understand what had happened.
Queen was killed instantly; her spine was crushed by the lowest bars of the mechanism.
In a way, she was lucky; she didn't see it coming and she didn't suffer. That’s not the case for other cats whose owners have shared their stories on other forums. Many cats have died slowly, suffocating and unable to even let out a meow. It seems several owners have tried, in vain, to ask 'Rapido' style sofa manufacturers to raise the mechanism or at least warn potential buyers about the danger to their pets. At the moment, there's no legal requirement for manufacturers to warn about the risks these types of sofa beds pose to cats and other small animals.
As for me, I’m going to replace the sofa with one that might be less convenient but leaves enough space for a cat under the mechanism when folded up. In the meantime, I’m not opening it up to sleep on anymore... I’m not taking the risk of one of our lovely pets scuttling underneath again.
We can't bring Queen back, and we can't take away the heartbreak, but I hope that by sharing my story on several sites, we can save other lives and prevent further tragedies.
