A KITTEN has been rescued from the top of a lamp post - thanks to a post on Facebook!.

Eagle-eyed neighbour Vicky Hale saw the kitten on the lamp post outside her house in Dewyk Road, Canvey, and immediately leapt into action to help get the five-month-old tabby kitten to safety after realising it was stuck.

She phoned both the fire service and RSPCA, but neither were able to help.

The kitten had begun to get desperate and had climbed further up the lamp post to get onto the top.

She said: “I don’t know how he managed to get there and survive without falling, although he nearly fell.

“The height he was at was just above the height of my house, so he was obviously very scared.”

In desperation, she put a post on Facebook and was thrilled when Russ Hurn, of company Hot Hire which has a fleet of fire engines used for events and weddings, responded, saying he was on his way.

Mr Hurn, who has been a firefighter in Kent for 25 years before setting up the business, said: “It just shows the wonderful world of Facebook.

“I was having my tea when my wife said there was a cat stuck up a lamp post.

“I told her to see if they had called the fire service, and apparently they couldn’t come out because of the cuts to the service and the RSCPA were three hours away. We are big cat lovers so I went out there and it was great to be able to help out.”

Mr Hurn said he had dealt with many calls to cats being stuck when he was a firefighter, but hadn’t tackled any since leaving.

He added: “There was no way the cat could have got down by itself as it was properly stuck.

“It would have died if we hadn’t have been able to get it down.

“It was great to be able to help.”

He added the cat seemed to be very appreciative of being rescued from its predicament, before being handed back to his owners.