Susan Hegarty, officially credited as Rescue Lady in most appearances, is a character from the Disney animated feature film Lilo & Stitch. She helps Lilo adopt Stitch when he lands in her animal shelter. She also made a few guest appearances in Lilo & Stitch: The Series.
Susan runs an animal shelter where Stitch ends up being flung into while escaping from Jumba and Pleakley. At the same time, Nani comes to the shelter to get Lilo a pet to curb her behavior, and Lilo just so happens to find Stitch and instantly becomes fascinated with him. When Stitch is shown to Susan, she gets frightened by his appearance at first, but eventually calms down after Lilo says she wants to adopt him.
In "Sample", Susan calls a pair of "alien hunters" named Merwin and Dean to deal with Experiment 258 (Sample), who had been captured and brought to the shelter.
In "Babyfier", Susan points out to Lilo and Stitch that Mr. Patterson, an old dog at the pound, has been waiting for months to be adopted and that his time is just about up. Lilo then cleverly unleashes Experiment 151 (Babyfier), who turns the old dog into an adorable puppy. Almost immediately after, Mr. Patterson is adopted from the shelter by a little boy who was instantly attracted by him.
In "Skip", Susan presents Experiment 089 (Skip) to Lilo when she asks if there have been any new "dogs" brought to the animal shelter lately. She then lets Lilo take Skip home with her.
Trivia[]
Her name is not mentioned onscreen, but appears on the adoption papers she has Nani sign.
Disney Speedstorm, a 2023 video game in which the character appears as a crew member to support the Lilo & Stitch racers, uses her real name, marking the first time that any official Disney media credits her as "Susan Hegarty" instead of "Rescue Lady".
