Cat shipped in crate survives one month
Published: January 11, 2006
From the time he was a kitten rescued from a Dumpster in Italy, Oscar the cat was “real adventurous, always trying to see what everything is, very curious,” says his owner, Josh McMahon.
The cat’s latest escapade confirms those feline traits and adds another survivor.
It all began when Oscar’s owner was discharged from the Navy. McMahon, 26, was moving back home to Central New York in December after being stationed in Sicily and most recently in Port Hueneme, Calif. When moving day came and the movers left, 1-year-old Oscar had disappeared.
McMahon and his wife, Angela, postponed their cross-country drive for a day to search the neighborhood and shelters. They kept searching online.
Meanwhile, a crate full of their furniture made its way to Syracuse and was stacked in a warehouse for Lincoln Moving & Storage/Atlas Van Lines.
Weeks passed.
After Christmas, workers at
the warehouse heard meows.
They brought the crate down with a forklift, opened it, and out walked a black-and-white cat.
“This shipment was loaded Nov. 30, and we didn’t open this crate until the 28th of December,” says Atlas sales manager Mike Kalish.
Figuring there was no way a cat could survive a month without food or water, Kalish says workers assumed it was a neighborhood cat that somehow found his way in when the crates were being moved around.
They gave it food and water. Then one of the workers, Karen Toole, took the cat to Cats Only Veterinary Hospital in Fayetteville.
Dr. Robert Upholt discovered an identifying microchip in the cat’s neck and traced it to a naval base in Sicily. Putting all the clues together, Kalish was amazed that a cat could live so long without nourishment.
“That’s like a miracle, you know?” he says.
McMahon got a phone call from the moving company on Thursday afternoon. “They just kind of described him and asked if we had a cat,” he recalls. McMahon picked up Oscar at the vet’s office Friday morning.
How is it possible for a cat to survive so long without food or water?
“He just did,” says veterinary assistant Christine Pomicter, “and he wasn’t even dehydrated.”
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