Carrie and Matt Clark were returning shoes to Amazon when their cat Galena jumped into the box before it was sealed.
Six days later, at the Amazon warehouse, workers opened up the box to find Galena, dehydrated and hungry. But the six-year-old shorthair cat had survived the journey.
A trip to the vet who found the microchip reunited Galena with her owners.
When Carrie Clark got a phone call on April 17 from a veterinarian in California informing her that her cat, which had vanished from her Utah home a week earlier, had been found some 500 miles away, her first reaction was disbelief.
“I could not believe that it was true,” Clark said. “I told her: I think this is a prank.”
It wasn’t. Galena, had sneaked inside a 3-by-3-foot cardboard Amazon returns package alongside five pairs of steel-toed boots. Then the cat was transported two states away to one of the company’s warehouses, where it was discovered by Amazon employees.
Despite her ordeal, Galena was in relatively good health with no issues apart from mild dehydration, Clark said. Two factors had helped: One seam on the box had come unglued, allowing oxygen to circulate, and mild weather kept Galena from overheating or freezing.
“She doesn’t meow a lot and she loves boxes, so for her, she was really happy in that moment, I’m sure,” Clark said. “Although I’m sure that wasn’t the case later on.”
Brandy Hunter, who works at the Amazon warehouse in the customer returns department, got a call from her coworker while driving home. In a post on her Facebook site, she said her coworker contacted her because everyone knew she loves cats.
She 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!
I finished driving home, picked up my badge, my cat carrier, a blanket, some cat food and food & water dishes and drove to work to see if I could catch this beautiful baby and try to get her to eat and drink something after spending a minimum of 7 FULL DAYS in a taped closed box in the back of a trailer full of items being returned to Amazon!!!”
Hunter accurately predicted that this was a case of the cat getting in the box and accidentally getting shipped out. The next morning, Hunter took the cat to the vet to see if she was microchipped.
That was when the vet contacted the Clarks, who live in Utah,
When Clark got the call, she and her husband quickly booked a flight to California. The next day they arrived at the veterinarian’s clinic, where they were reunited with Galena.
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.”
