Tyler Hoogerwerf was walking his dogs at the dog park when he noticed smoke and discovered a fire at the Henry County Humane Society in Geneseo IL on Sunday afternoon and rushed to help. Tyler saw the fire and called 911, then rushed to the shelter, kicked in the cat porch door and rescued 2 cats from the smoke filled porch. He heard terrible screams coming from the cats. Tyler was wounded in Afghanistan around 4 years ago, risking his life for his countrymen; yesterday he risked his safety to save the shelter’s animals. Thanks to Tyler, two towns’ fire departments, and the police, all of the shelter’s cats and dogs s survived the fire.
Tyler is quoted as saying, “I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see. The smoke was extremely thick. I told them, there are cats in there, and those cats are just screaming.” In commenting on his quick-thinking and assertive action, Tyler simply said, “I’m an animal guy. I love animals. Just hearing those cats kind of got to me.”
The shelter fire resulted from sparks spreading from a nearby city owned burn pile fire. A shed, a camper trailer and several feral cat houses were destroyed.
Burned out feral cat shelters
A short news video on the fire.
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Tyler Hoogerwerf you are a hero! Thank you for saving the lives of the innocent animals. God bless and keep you.
THANK YOU, Tyler Hoogerwerf!!! I cried tears of joy when I read this. *sniff* I have one word for your beautiful soul: PHENOMENAL! How refreshing. 😀 What a HERO!!! God bless you Tyler. ((((HUGS))))
Now that city Burn Pile should be abolished!! THANK YOU for saving those animals!!!!!
Yes Tyler thank you so much for saving those cats. To bad we could not see some of them in this article though. I hope you did not get too hurt during that rescue and if you did I hope you recover real soon too. I hope they give you a commendation or something too.
Mr. Hoogerwerf, notice almost all the comments here are from women? Do you realize there’s an army of women out there who are in love with you now? There’s something about a man who loves animals that melts a woman’s heart…if more men knew that, they’d never have to worry about female companionship for the rest of their lives!