TALK about cats having nine lives ...

Ziggy, an old moggie who celebrates her 18th birthday this month, cheated death when she was run over by a combine harvester.

One of the giant combine's blades sliced Ziggy's front left leg clean off at the shoulder while she was having a nap in the hedgerow at the back of her home, near Selby.

The combine then threw the tortoise-shell pensioner up into the air and back into the hedge.

Owner Sue Holland said: "I knew instantly something had happened because she wasn't at the gate to greet me.

"We eventually found her in our back garden. Somehow she had managed to struggle over a field and a fence, a distance of about half a mile.

"We immediately took her to the vet, but she had lost a lot of blood and it was touch and go."

Mrs Holland, whose husband David is a farmer, took Ziggy home to St Wilfrid's Crescent, Brayton, and stayed up with her all night, keeping her on a drip.

She said: "We brought her home on Tuesday night and, miraculously, the next morning she got up and started eating."

Vet Danielle Greenberg, of the Holmefield practice, in Brayton, said: "It was a big operation, but Ziggy pulled through brilliantly."

Updated: 10:10 Saturday, August 09, 2003