A 7-week-old kitten was recently rescued by an Indio business owner after he became startled and ran into a wet drain pipe, according to a Riverside County Department of Animal Services news release.

The kitten and his “kitty buddies,” as the news release described them, were eating food inside a box near a dumpster at 83-151 Indio Blvd. (map) when an employee from a nearby store moved the box from the path of a soon-to-be-arriving trash truck.

Two of the surprised cats ran in an unknown direction, but the third darted into a drainage pipe.

Animal control officials were called and tried to remove the kitten, but it took the slender hands of Sav-On-Carpets business owner Sal Flores to get far enough into the drain to reach the small animal.

Animal Control Officer Kyle Stephens then grabbed the kitten with a net.

“He seemed paralyzed at first, as if he was scared out of his mind,” Stephens stated in the release. “But I wrapped him up in a towel and dried him off.”

The 7-week-old kitten was taken to the Coachella Valley Animal Campus in Thousand Palms, where employees described him as very nice and nicknamed him Genie.

Officials believed the kitten was a stray and planned to make him available for adoption after a holding period.