Nine Lives All in One Night, Poor Kitty

Last night when I was getting ready to go to bed, I heard a cat meowing in the backyard, which caused me to look for our black cat, Buddy. It took me awhile to find Buddy and I didn’t hear any more meows, so we went to bed.
This morning I was up early. I stepped out on the back porch and I heard meows again! It sounded like Buddy so I thought maybe she slipped out when my daughter came in late. So I started looking around trying to figure out where Buddy was and where the meows were coming from.
I noticed one of the crape myrtle trees in the back yard and something black about 3 feet from the ground. It was a black cat, hanging upside down from the tree!! I looked closer and it looked just like Buddy! I drew nearer and the cat looked at me, scared and hurt, and hissed. It turned out it was not Buddy—it was a neighborhood cat we had seen many times in our yard that looks like Buddy’s twin. She was caught in the crotch of the tree, her hips wedged tightly between the two trunks. She looked exhausted, frightened, and hurt. I called animal control. I couldn’t get near her because she had claws and was hissing and I thought she might bite me.
About 20 minutes later, a police officer showed up. He put on his leather gloves and we gave him a towel. He managed to get the poor kitty out of the tree and put her into our cat carrier to wait for animal control.
The poor kitty was not moving her back legs at all. She just lay there in the carrier, exhausted.
A lady from animal control arrived about 40 minutes later maybe. She was able to pick the cat up out of the carrier, in the towel, and put her in her truck. The poor cat was too tired to even make any noise other than to hiss weakly at her once.
I called this afternoon, and they told me the kitty died on the way to the animal shelter.
I looked at our tree this evening when I got home. It has deep gashes from the cat’s claws where she tried to pull herself free. It was so sad that she suffered so much.
I forgot to mention that the tree is right next to our bird feeder and when the officer approached the cat, he saw a mouse inside the bird feeder behind the plexiglass. That is probably what the cat was after!