By: Amelia Xiao

On April 17 in Utah, Carrie Clark received a phone call from a veterinarian in California. Her cat Galena, who had vanished a week before, was found in an Amazon Warehouse 500 miles away in California. Disbelief? Shock? Ease? She wasn’t sure how to feel.

For days, Ms Clark had searched everywhere for her shy indoor cat. She was filled with worry. It turns out that Galena had been packed into a 3 by 3 foot box alongside five pairs of steel-toed boots in an Amazon return package. Brave Galena went through days without food and water. Surprisingly, when Amazon workers discovered her, she was unharmed and doing well.

Amazon employee, Brandy Hunter, brought Galena to a veterinarian in California, where she was identified through her microchip. When Ms. Clark got the call, she and her husband immediately booked a flight to California to reunite with Galena. Relief swept both Ms. and Mr. Clark when they saw their cat again.

Ms. Hunter commented on Facebook, “We have gotten some pretty crazy things in my time but never anything like this!” She also commented that she drove to the warehouse to look after the cat while they waited for her owners.

Galena is shy and loves boxes, so Ms. Clark assumes that Galena must have jumped inside the return box when her husband went to get the tape to seal it. The package itself reportedly weighed over 30 pounds already, so when Galena went inside, it did not make much of a difference and she went undetected.

Galena is now happily living with Ms. and Mr. Clark in Utah. Hopefully she won’t be traveling to any Amazon warehouse anytime soon!