Jack Hanrahan/Erie Times-News/AP Photo

A Pennsylvania woman who climbed approximately 40 feet to reach a cat stuck in a tree had to be rescued by nine firefighters after she too became stuck.

Tara Dennis, 21, responded Sunday afternoon to the whimpers of a cat stuck in a tree by climbing a fence and a garage roof in order to reach the tree in her Erie, Penn., neighborhood where the cat was stuck.

"I got the cat," Dennis told The Erie Times-News. "I put it in my shirt."

Dennis, who could not be reached today by ABC News, did not have as much luck climbing down the tree with the cat, however, and had to be rescued by a team of firefighters who responded to a neighbor's 911 call.

"A ladder truck and rescue company responded," Erie Fire Chief Tony Pol told ABC News. "They used a 28-foot ladder to go up and get her and the cat."

Neither Dennis nor the cat, whose owner is not known, were injured in the incident, according to Pol.

The fire chief said the lesson learned from Dennis' scare is that it is best to wait for stranded animals to save themselves.

"The cats will usually come down by themselves," Pol said. "They find their way down so we don't like people taking unnecessary risks of getting hurt or injured."

"Everything in this story had a happy ending though," he said.