Woman Saves ‘Tiny Orange Kitten’ Tossed Out of Car into Storm Gutter (Exclusive)

Tarynn Byrum was at work in North Carolina one day in May when one of her coworkers asked if she liked cats.

“He then informed me that, from across the street, he witnessed a man in a work truck drive past and throw my sweet baby into a storm gutter in our parking lot and rush off,” Byrum tells PEOPLE exclusively. “I followed him outside, where he pointed out a tiny orange kitten lying in the gutter, peeking at us from over a parking barrier.” 

Byrum jumped into action, immediately bending down to scoop the little one up. The kitten, barely bigger than her hand, didn’t fight as she held him in her arms.

“I noticed something was wrong immediately upon picking him up. He was obviously exhausted from his ordeal. I noticed he was filthy with matted fur and a nasty case of fleas,” she says. “He also had extreme discharge buildup in his eyes to the point where you couldn’t even tell what color they were, which worried me as I didn’t want that to cause further damage.”

She brought him inside and kept him in a cardboard box for the remainder of her workday. The moment she got off work, she drove 45 minutes to the nearest emergency vet, staying there until 1 a.m. as they ran tests.

Once the kitten had been thoroughly evaluated, Byrum took him home, but still, she didn’t know if she would keep him. 

“At first, I didn’t plan to keep him. I absolutely wanted to, but wasn’t sure if it would play out for me to be able to,” she explains. “The plan was to get him back to 100%, foster him and find someone who would love him as much as I did, and be open to staying in contact so I could get updates on him as he grew.”

However, “obviously, that didn’t happen.”

“It took about one day for me to be like, ‘Yep, you’re mine now!'” Byrum says. She posted a video of the adoption story on TikTok, and the video went viral, amassing over 300,000 views.

Since the incident, Byrum says the orange tabby, whom she named Nugget, has been recovering very well. He’s been taking his medications and going to the vet for check-ins, but thankfully, he doesn’t show signs of lasting injury from being thrown out of the car.

They did, however, have an initial health scare when Nugget was diagnosed with a heart murmur, but its status is low-grade. 

Byrum says the biggest challenge for Nugget was getting rid of his fleas, which covered nearly his entire body.

“His nasty case of fleas was a journey. Since I found him in May, we have had a harder time kicking them since the area I live in is very hot and humid in the summertime, and the house I live in is older, so it tends to trap the climate,” she explains. “Luckily, we managed to get rid of them after rounds of treatments, deep cleanings and flea baths.” 

Nugget weighed less than 0.5 lbs. when Byrum found him, but now he’s growing to be almost full-sized and is starting to show off his personality. While he is healthy and happy in just about every way, Byrum says a “funny” thing about Nugget is that he doesn’t meow. 

“Not sure why, it’s not a health issue or anything, but he just can’t meow! He opens his mouth, and it appears like he is, but it’s completely silent. It’s the weirdest thing,” she says.

Although Byrum was “in shock” when she first found the now-5-month-old kitten, she feels like it was meant to be.

“I was left trying to fathom how anyone could do something that horrific to such a sweet little thing,” she shares. “After that, it was as if I had always been meant to find him. We were immediately attached and I just fell completely in love with him.”