NEW DELHI: Carrie Clark was shocked when she received a call on April 17 from a veterinarian in California, informing her that her missing cat, Galena, had been found 500 miles away from her Utah home. The 6-year-old American shorthair had disappeared a week earlier, and Clark initially thought the call was a prank.
It turned out that Galena had climbed into a 3-by-3-foot Amazon returns package containing five pairs of steel-toed boots and was transported to an Amazon warehouse in California.Remarkably, the cat survived the journey without food or water, thanks to a partially unglued seam on the box that allowed oxygen to circulate and mild weather conditions that prevented overheating or freezing.
“It’s really a miracle that she was able to survive,” Clark said.
Clark believes that Galena might have jumped into the box while her husband was packing it and left to get some tape to seal it. The couple didn’t notice the added weight of the cat when they mailed the package on April 10. They quickly realized that their shy, indoor cat was missing and searched their house and neighborhood extensively, fearing the worst.
The call from the veterinarian came after an Amazon employee, Brandy Hunter, brought Galena in after co-workers discovered the cat inside a returns box. The veterinarian identified Galena through her microchip and contacted Clark. Ms Hunter said she had driven to the warehouse to catch and care for the cat, which had spent days in the box “in the back of a trailer full of items being returned to Amazon.”
Clark and her husband immediately booked a flight to California and were reunited with Galena at the veterinarian’s clinic the next day. “When I got to hold her again, she stopped shaking and knew that I was there for her,” Clark said. “It was such a miraculous moment.”
It turned out that Galena had climbed into a 3-by-3-foot Amazon returns package containing five pairs of steel-toed boots and was transported to an Amazon warehouse in California.Remarkably, the cat survived the journey without food or water, thanks to a partially unglued seam on the box that allowed oxygen to circulate and mild weather conditions that prevented overheating or freezing.
“It’s really a miracle that she was able to survive,” Clark said.
Clark believes that Galena might have jumped into the box while her husband was packing it and left to get some tape to seal it. The couple didn’t notice the added weight of the cat when they mailed the package on April 10. They quickly realized that their shy, indoor cat was missing and searched their house and neighborhood extensively, fearing the worst.
The call from the veterinarian came after an Amazon employee, Brandy Hunter, brought Galena in after co-workers discovered the cat inside a returns box. The veterinarian identified Galena through her microchip and contacted Clark. Ms Hunter said she had driven to the warehouse to catch and care for the cat, which had spent days in the box “in the back of a trailer full of items being returned to Amazon.”
Clark and her husband immediately booked a flight to California and were reunited with Galena at the veterinarian’s clinic the next day. “When I got to hold her again, she stopped shaking and knew that I was there for her,” Clark said. “It was such a miraculous moment.”