When Melissa Labryer, an animal control officer, arrived at the scene, she immediately spotted the babies, who appeared to be 5 or 6 weeks old, lying lifeless in the white powder. Labryer quickly moved all the freezing cats into dry carriers and headed to the nearest animal shelter.

“‘I need help! I have frozen cats and I need some volunteers to help me back at the shelter,’” Labryer told a shelter volunteer, according to Barbe Shackelford, director of Friends of Campbell County Animal Control (FOCCAC).

“[Labryer] mentioned there were 12 cats in need of revival,” Shackelford told The Dodo. “So the volunteer who got the call quickly put out a request for assistance from any other volunteers who happened to be currently logged in to the Facebook Messenger chat group.”