A tiny kitten is slowly recovering after he was allegedly flung out of a car in a busy downtown intersection Wednesday afternoon.

The 10-week-old kitten received an emergency amputation on his fractured back leg after two people brought him into the Downtown Animal Hospital on Church St. just before 4 p.m.

A female tourist told hospital staff she witnessed the cat being thrown out of a moving vehicle at Dundas St. W. and University Ave., but she wasn’t able to note the make or licence plate of the car. She reached out to a man heading home from work who offered to drive her to the animal hospital, on Church St. near Wellesley St. E.

“It’s so shocking because in the middle of downtown Toronto, in a busy intersection, that this kind of incident can happen without anybody saying anything and noticing is, to me, unfathomable,” Dr. Lu Vihos, who performed the surgery, said in an interview. “Why would you dispose of a life by just rolling down the window and throwing it out?”

She said the little black-and-white kitten, named Dundas by hospital staff, had two fractures in his back leg and was in severe pain.

“I was called in and had to just clear my schedule because this cat needed to go to surgery right away. His leg was dangling,” said Vihos, who is also part-owner of the animal hospital.

But Dundas’ issues didn’t end with just the broken leg.

He was thin, dehydrated and had ear mites. When staff couldn’t get an IV tube into his arm, they had to stick it in his neck. Of the two fractures in his amputated leg, Vihos wasn’t sure if one was the remnant of prior abuse.

“One (fracture) was definitely fresh. The other one was questionable,” she said.

Abuse cases like Dundas’ make up probably less than five per cent of the little critters tended to by the Downtown Animal Hospital, Vihos said.

Nevertheless there are some concerning incidents, including one time that a bag of three kittens was abandoned in a garbage dumpster.

“The public needs to be aware and . . . if they see something wrong happening, they need to step up and help to stop these horrible, horrific acts,” Vihos said.

She said Toronto Police opened a case file to find Dundas’ alleged abuser but, without any identifying information, they haven’t found the perpetrator.

“We’re trying to reach out to the public to see if anybody saw anything on that day,” Vihos said.

Dundas, meanwhile, is still in hospital on pain medication, an IV and antibiotics, but Vihos said he’s doing better and eating well, and he’s up for adoption.

“He was in shock when he came in and right now he’s very happy,” she said. “He’s enjoying us petting him. He’s purring.”

He’s also getting used to life with only three legs.

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“He will stand on his back leg and do a couple hops and then sit down,” Vihos said. “He’s a sweet little kitten that has gotten, thankfully, a second lease on life.

“We hope to find him a forever loving home.”