The Associated Press brings the story (via Seattle’s King 5 News) of Oscar, a cat who lives at a nursing home in Providence, Rhode Island. Oscar apparently can predict death. The feline “harbinger of death” makes daily rounds of Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center’s dementia unit. Oscar has been known to “sniff and observe patients, then sit beside people who would wind up dying in a few hours … Oscar is better at predicting death than the people who work there …” This scenario has played out 25 times so far, with patients dying within two to four hours of Oscar’s visit.
Things to ponder:
1. Given that the cat works in a dementia unit, isn’t it possible that people are … shall we say, mistaken about Oscar’s predictions?
2. Most cats have a low opinion of humans. Does Oscar merely predict deaths, or does he actually cause them? Maybe he steals patients’ breath. See Cat’s Eye, by Stephen King.
3. Even if Oscar truly can sense a patient’s imminent demise, shouldn’t the medical staff be at least as astute in these matters as the cat?