Black cats may have the reputation for being bad luck, but don’t tell that to the owner of one ebony feline who helped save her life.

Piran the kitty lives with his cat mom in a rural area of Cornwall, England. When the 83-year-old Bodmin woman went missing, neighbors launched a search party, scouring the nearby countryside, but she was nowhere to be found—until searchers caught sight of an agitated Piran, mewing loudly by a cornfield gate.

“The cat is very attached to her, and he was going back and forth in the gateway and meowing, so I decided to go and search the maize field,” searcher Tamar Longmuir told Sky News.

With the crop standing seven feet tall, the going was difficult. Keeping to the perimeter, Longmuir skirted the field, calling out her neighbor’s name. She’d reached the bottom of the field when she finally heard a faint response.

To Longmuir’s dismay, she realized the elderly woman had taken a tumble down a steep, 70-foot ravine, and after passing through some barbed wire, had finally come to rest in a stream.

Although Longmuir was able to make her way down to assess the situation, and thankfully, learned her neighbor lady had sustained no major injuries, it’s believed the octogenarian had been stuck there for several hours.

Longmuir had to climb back up the ravine to get cell phone service, but she was able to contact emergency crews who soon arrived to extricate the stranded senior from the ravine.

After a concerted two-hour effort by almost 25 emergency personnel from the police, fire department, and air and water rescue services, the woman was airlifted to a nearby hospital for treatment.

“Whilst the lady concerned is still currently receiving care, she is in good spirits and is being well looked after,” Bodmin Police said in a Facebook post. “Piran the cat saved the day!”

Indeed, had Piran not sounded the alarm, the outcome might have been vastly different.

“Without the cat waiting at the gate to that field, it could have been hours later that I or anyone else would have checked in there,” Longmuir told Sky News.

Grateful for Piran’s persistent vocal intervention in aid of his human, neighbors are pitching in to take care of her kitty while she recuperates.

Authorities, neighbors, and the elderly woman are all thankful to Piran for saving the day.

In America, August 17th marks National Black Cat Appreciation Day, but considering Piran’s recent heroic deeds, we think an international show of appreciation for a tale that begins and ends with the cat’s meow would be just about “purrfect.”