TRIO OF MOTORISTS COME TO THE AID OF INJURED BOBCAT.

Byline: PATRICIA FARRELL AIDEM Staff Writer

AGUA DULCE - A trio of Agua Dulce commuters pulled off the road one by one to save an injured bobcat, then spent three hours making sure the wild feline got help.

Brett DeMott didn't catch the names of the two women who stopped after he'd set out traffic cones from his construction truck to protect the semiconscious bobcat as traffic zipped by on a blind curve. But the three spent hours Thursday together maneuvering the cat into one woman's Jeep, then seeking help.

"It was like any other morning when I came around the curve on Agua Dulce Canyon Road," DeMott said Friday. "But there was something in my lane - I had to swerve and I just missed hitting it. It looked like a bobcat.

"I thought it was dead, but then I saw its tail move. I thought `I gotta turn around and help it."'

A woman named Candy stopped to help and as the two were deciding how to get the cat into her Jeep - worried that it would claw and bite if it regained consciousness - DeMott turned to see another woman petting the 30-pound male cat.

"I wasn't sure what to do," he said. "It's a wild animal with big claws and big teeth, but he was letting her pet him, so we decided, let's do it."

DeMott followed Candy to an Agua Dulce pet hospital, but the veterinarian wasn't licensed to treat wild animals. The staff there phoned around in search of help for the cat, which was turned over to the county's Castaic Animal Shelter.

By then the cat was conscious - and made its feeling known.

"When he snarled at the animal control officer, he sounded like a 400-pound tiger," DeMott said.

Meanwhile the veterinarian staff in Agua Dulce had located a vet in Palmdale licensed to handle wild animals. The animal doctor raced to the shelter, transported the cat to her facility and on Friday an office worker said the bobcat was doing well but had been transferred, refusing to say where.

DeMott, a father of two daughters, 8 and 5, said he was keeping track of the bobcat's recovery. He was told the animal had suffered a concussion and had fluid in its lungs. It also had recently eaten a rabbit.

Karrie DeMott said she wasn't surprised by her husband's actions - nor the check he asked her to mail to the Palmdale vet.

"He sent her a donation ... so she could take care of the next one," she said.

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