Rescued after six days dying under a trailer

A cat has survived a 70 feet (21 metre) fall from a viaduct after being found six days later, hours from death.

Gus, a bengal from Gloucestershire, is "recovering well" after the ordeal that has left him with three legs.

The cat's owner, Caroline Bush, said she heard that a cat had been seen falling from the nearby viaduct around the time Gus went missing, but did not think he would have wandered so far - about a mile away from her house.

The 18-month-old cat was discovered hidden under a trailer by a dog walker six days after he went missing. Fortunately, the dog walker recognised it was Gus from posters in the area and contacted Mrs Bush.

"I cried with relief when he was found but when I pulled him out, I realised his leg had rotted away," said Mrs Bush. "He couldn't walk and when I took him out from under the trailer the smell was horrendous - the sort of smell that you can still smell. And I thought he had white paint all over him but it was insect eggs."

Gus was rushed to the vets to have his front left leg amputated, but staff were sceptical about his survival.

"When we took him to the vets, they said if he'd been left another couple of hours he would have been dead… But it's a huge drop - how he survived at all, I don't know," said Mrs Bush.