Cat OK After Traveling 70 Miles Under SUV

[KIISQueen]

VOORHEES, N.J. - Curiosity didn't kill one cat on a wild ride on the New Jersey Turnpike. The kitten, now known, for obvious reasons, as Miracle, hitchhiked a ride on the underbelly of a sport utility vehicle just before Christmas.

The gray and white feline traveled some 70 miles under the vehicle as it whizzed along the Turnpike on Dec. 23.

"I'm just amazed that the cat didn't fall off or get blown off," Karen Dixon-Aquino, director of the Animal Welfare Association in Voorhees, told the Courier-Post of Cherry Hill for Tuesday's newspapers.

The association is caring for the furry hitchhiker and plans to put him up for adoption.

The SUV's driver was traveling from Newark to Cherry Hill and didn't know she was giving the kitten a ride until another motorist saw the tabby through a wheel well and flagged the driver over near Interchange 4 in Mount Laurel.

Dixon-Aquino said the cat probably climbed into the guts of the SUV in Newark and was asleep when the journey began. Somehow, the cat avoided being mangled by fan blades and other moving parts as he clung to the car for the ride.

The kitty, estimated to be about 8 or 9 months old, was not unscathed, though.

"He was pretty freaked out," Dixon-Aquino said. "His paws were burnt, one claw was missing and his fur was singed."

[InfiniteNothing]

Cutting the break lines?

[Grimm]

Cutting the break lines?

Was probably trying to hotwire it to go for a joyride, mabe use it as a getaway vehical for a few heists...

[Thesifer]

Bah. I guess we should have told our story about "Freeway" to the news that traveled over 90+ miles. On the underbelly of an old van.

[Jenny]

Amazing! Scary, too. We lived out in the country growing up and we had several cats caught in my dad's truck. Found a couple dead on the driveway and one, my cat Pudgy, escaped but her tail was caught in the engine so the very end of it was always bent. lol

[Mommypooh]

wow that cut must be pretty stong to have hung on.

[bachviet]

Still not as good as OJ in "Naked Guns".

I wonder how many lives that cat lost during the trip.

[doolittle]

alot of cats will climb into a vehicle to keep warm at night, a simple way to avoid hurting a cat that has climbed into the engine compartment, is to knock on your hood a couple times before you get into the car.

[DarkFury]

This happed to one of my cats when I was a kid... it had climbed up into the engine compartment of my Dad's van... and went for a ride.

Luckily, my Dad heard the cat... and opened the rear engine access inside of the van (the cover between the captain's chairs and the dash) to grab the cat and pull him into the van. Luckily the cat wasn't harmed.