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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
A Utah couple accidentally shipped their cat with an Amazon return. A | |
week – and 3 ‘miracles’ later – they were on a plane to meet a | |
stranger | |
By Sydney Bishop, CNN | |
Updated: | |
Source: CNN | |
The Amazon returns employee wasn’t at work the day one of her | |
colleagues at a California warehouse found in a box mailed six days | |
earlier from Utah. | |
But Brandy Hunter got the call anyway. | |
“Everyone knows I love cats,” she recalled. “I was not on shift | |
but went to the facility with cat food and a carrier to see if I could | |
help.” | |
When she got there April 16, the small calico had emerged from the | |
3-by-3-foot cardboard container. But the feline was frightened and | |
wouldn’t eat anything. | |
“She eventually warmed up to me and let me pet her,” Hunter said in | |
her statement from Amazon. “I could tell she belonged to someone by | |
the way she was behaving, so I took her home that night.” | |
Hunter planned to feed and , she said. She also would take her the next | |
day to a vet for an exam – and to check for that might hold the | |
secret to her identity. | |
Meanwhile, some 630 miles away in Lehi, Utah, Carrie Stevens Clark had | |
been eagerly searching for , then missing for nearly a week, she told | |
CNN. Galena, a 6-year-old indoor shorthair, tended to be quiet and | |
often froze in uncomfortable situations. | |
She also loved boxes. | |
And Clark’s family loved her. | |
They had prayed for her swift return, Clark said, even undertaking a | |
one-day fast, a during challenging times within the Church of Jesus | |
Christ of Latter-Day Saints. | |
But still, no Galena. | |
A not-so-micro discovery | |
Back in California, Hunter took to the vet. An exam revealed she was | |
not injured, had a regular temperature and was only mildly dehydrated, | |
the Amazon worker posted on . | |
The vet also made a key discovery: The cat was, in fact, microchipped. | |
Soon, another phone – in Lehi, Utah – was ringing. | |
Clark initially thought it was a prank, she said: The caller – in | |
Jurupa Valley, California, west of Los Angeles – had found her lost | |
cat. And the vet sent proof: all the information from Galena’s | |
microchip. | |
“I knew at that point she really had my cat,” Clark told CNN. | |
But how? | |
“We literally had emotions of laughing hysterically to crying | |
hysterically,” she said. “They were so intense. It was just the | |
strangest emotion feeling both of those at the same time.” | |
Galena, Clark soon learned, had been found in the Amazon return box. | |
That’s when she put it all together. | |
Boxed in before a trio of ‘miracles’ | |
“The box is Galena’s absolute favorite place to play in, and | |
she’s pretty chill and happy when she’s in a box,” Clark told | |
CNN. | |
On April 10, Carrie, with her husband Matt Clark, had been packing up | |
work boots to ship. “What happened was my husband had packed up the | |
shoes, and he kept one pair and put the other five back in the box.” | |
Then, Matt closed the flaps of the box before leaving the room to get | |
tape and scissors. | |
“Galena must have snuck into the box without him seeing and without | |
us knowing, and then he came back and taped the box back up,” Carrie | |
Clark said. “She loves to hide in boxes, so she was pretty happy in | |
there. She didn’t make any noise.” | |
UPS then ferried away the box, Amazon representative Alisa Carroll told | |
CNN. | |
That’s when, by Clark’s estimation, a trio of “miracles” | |
started kicking in. | |
One of the box’s seams wasn’t completely sealed, allowing Galena | |
enough oxygen to breathe, Clark said. Also, the weather was perfectly | |
stable – not too hot or too cold – so Galena did not freeze or get | |
overheated. | |
And then she arrived in Jurupa Valley, where Hunter, who as a side | |
hustle, picked up her phone. She was “the only person at that | |
warehouse who knew how to handle the situation” and recognized it was | |
an accident and “wasn’t malicious by any means,” Clark said. | |
Soon, the Clarks were on a plane. | |
Galena’s grand greeting | |
“We were so nervous,” Clark said of the flight. “I was so anxious | |
to see her and just get to her. That’s the only thing I could think | |
of was, ‘I just want to get to my cat.’” | |
Still, “we didn’t know what kind of shape she would be in,” she | |
said. | |
Eight days after Galena was unwittingly packed up and two days after | |
the warehouse discovery, Clark and her husband stepped into an exam | |
room at the California vet’s office. | |
Clark began to coo, as Hunter recorded video she later . | |
“It’s Mommy,” she said, her eyes locked on Galena, crouched on a | |
blue exam table. | |
“Hi … Hi, my baby.” | |
“My darling,” Clark said, curling Galena into her chest and rocking | |
back and forth. | |
“This is my baby.” | |
“This moment,” Hunter posted of the reunion, “was absolutely | |
amazing (full of happy tears!!).” | |
Then, Galena – after days of being too scared to eat and still rapt | |
with exhaustion and stressed to the point of shedding – let Clark | |
feed her by hand. | |
A purr-fect ending | |
For the whole 10-hour drive back to Utah, Clark stared at Galena as she | |
slept. And soon, Clark said, her furry companion was back to her usual | |
self. | |
“We’re really pleased Brandy was able to help Galena reunite with | |
her family,” Amazon’s Carroll said. | |
Galena will likely continue to be a massive box lover – hopefully | |
without again taking off in one. And now, with their beloved cat back | |
safe and sound, the Clarks want to emphasize the importance of | |
microchips for pets. | |
“The main reason we were able to be reunited back with her again was | |
because of her microchip, so we encourage all pet owners to microchip | |
their pets,” she said. “It’s a really, really easy procedure. | |
It’s just a tiny microchip that goes in the back of their shoulder | |
blades.” | |
For Clark, though, the biggest takeaway runs much deeper. | |
“God’s hand is in the details of our lives. Like, he’s really the | |
one who can control it all. And if he wants something to happen, he can | |
easily make it happen,” she said. “And that’s honestly my main | |
purpose.” | |
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