Cat survives five-mile round trip under the bonnet of a Vauxhall Astra
A cat may have ‘used up one of her nine lives’ after miraculously surviving a car journey under the roof of a bonnet.
David King, 65, had a shock when he went to check the oil levels of his Vauxhall Astra in Sheerness, Kent, after dropping his grandson at school in Minster on a five-mile round trip.
His wife Tina King, 67, said: ‘He came running in shouting for me to come have a look. I thought whatever’s wrong?
‘What I didn’t expect to see was two eyes staring back at him from a ball of fluff. We weren’t even sure it was alive.
‘I gently prodded it with a stick to check it was breathing and saw it was a terrified little cat.
‘It reversed even further into the engine and was stuck.
‘I tried to reach it but it was too far down and there wasn’t any way I could coax it out.’
The retired couple called their roadside assistance service and they suggested they ring a local vet, who put them in touch with the Cats Protection charity.
It turned out the animal was four-year-old Rose, who was an indoor pet belonging to the couple’s neighbour, Allison Webster.
Kim Braysher, welfare team leader at Cats Protection’s Swale Branch, said: ‘When we opened the bonnet, we saw two wide eyes staring back at us.
‘She was understandably frightened and trembling. She must have been petrified all the time the car was driving on the busy school run.’
Kim said they tried to calm Rose, but she ‘backed away, burying herself deeper into the engine cavity’.
They managed to jack the car up and take off a front wheel off so they could reach in and rescue the cat.
Rose’s owners were traced to their address through her microchip.
Allison, 48, said: ‘On Monday morning, I thought she was asleep in my son’s bedroom on his windowsill but I felt something was wrong after he left for school and she never appeared.
‘She always gallops around the house after being fed, so I was surprised but relieved when I answered the door to Cats Protection.
‘Rose is my family and she had quite an experience with all that she went through. She must have been so afraid when the car was moving along the roads.
‘I feel so blessed that she had Cats Protection as well as a lovely couple who were willing and able to bring Rose home to me.
‘Rose is back to galloping around the house as if nothing happened but I’m pretty sure she has used up one of her nine lives.
‘Bless her, she’s a very lucky cat and I’m lucky to have her.’
Rose isn’t the only cat in Kent to have managed to squeeze herself into a small space. One pet called Ollie in Broadstairs somehow got stuck in a wall two years ago and it had to be knocked down by firefighters to rescue him.
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