Hundreds of thousands of people abandoned their work, chores and everything else earlier this week to sit down and watch a live Facebook video (above) of a cat stuck on a pole in Phoenix, Arizona.

The cat in question, named Gypsy, who lives in that particular neighbourhood according to ABC15, had been stuck atop the pole since Friday. It isn’t known why the neighbourhood waited till Monday to seek help.

A rivetting hour-and-a-half long video was posted by local news channel ABC15 at about 10.30 am on Monday, and soon there were thousands of people live-streaming it. In fact there were so many people watching the video that the Phoenix Fire Department asked ABC15 to tell the viewers to stop calling 911 about the cat because “they had been inundated with hundreds of calls from across the country in response to the live stream” which were delaying their ability to answer other emergency requests.

The video might sound like a dull one, and most of it was, though it had its moments of terror and suspense, like when the cat tried to climb down and was only one miss-step away from falling. Or when a man inexplicably tried to use a bucket to rescue it. Ultimately, it was a man from the neighbourhood who finally rescued the cat with a ladder.

The video above mysteriously blacked out at that very moment, only to return to show a cat-less pole. Another video (below) from a different vantage point, however, shows the brave rescue.