Cat hides in Amazon return package – then ends up in California 700 miles from home

A cat went missing after hiding in an Amazon return package. Then her Utah owner got a call – from hundreds of miles away – that “changed everything”.

On April 10, Galena the kitty “vanished” from her home in Lehi, her owner, Carrie Stevens Clark, said in an April 21 Facebook post.

Clark said she searched “every nook and cranny” in the home before flooding the neighbourhood, a suburb of Salt Lake City, with fliers and posting on social media.

“Nothing made sense!!” Clark said.

Then came an unexpected breakthrough. Seven days later, Clark got a call saying Galena had been found in California and identified with her microchip, she said.

Galena, it turned out, had jumped into one of Clark’s Amazon return packages and was shipped back to the return centre in Los Angeles, about 700 miles away from her home, she said.

Brandy Hunter, an employee at the Amazon warehouse where the cat was found, said in an April 17 Facebook post that she received a shocking phone call about the discovery while driving home from work that night.

“(My coworker) proceeded to tell me that she and my other coworkers opened a box and found a live cat inside! We have gotten some crazy things in my time here but NEVER anything like this! My coworker didn’t know what to do, so naturally…she called me, the crazy cat lady!” Hunter said.

Hunter cared for Galena at home for the night before taking her to the vet the following day, she said in her April 17 Facebook post. The cat’s microchip was scanned, connecting her to her owners back in Utah.

Hunter said she, Clark and Clark’s husband “absolutely broke down” after she called to share the news that Galena was alive and safe.

Galena had gone six days without food or water but was “completely unharmed” with healthy blood work, Clark said.

Galena’s owners were reunited with her in the vet’s office 48 hours after being called, Hunter said in an April 19 Facebook post.

Clark said she couldn’t have gotten there fast enough.

“With the help of my mom watching our kids, (Clark’s husband) Matt and I jumped on a plane the next morning and headed straight to (California) to get her,” she wrote. “ … Once we landed we got a rental car and drove another 1.5 hr to the vet. You can imagine our adrenaline! We made it!!

“We met Brandy (Hunter) and were reunited with Galena at the vet!!” she added. “Brandy (Hunter) told us Galena heard my voice when we walked in and she immediately reacted.”

Hunter said she was “so very grateful I was able to be a part of this amazingness and turn something so traumatic and unbelievable for everyone involved into something positive with a very very happy ending!”

And Clark said she was in “awe of all the little and big miracles” that took place during the chaos.

She said she “couldn’t imagine living life without” Galena and credits the reunion to Hunter’s “kindness”. – The Charlotte Observer/Tribune News Service