A two-year-old tabby cat went missing in a recycling centre for three weeks before being found. Mum-of-two Gemma Hutchinson-James said it was a “miracle” her family’s cat was still alive and well upon being rescued, as Surrey Live reports.
Opie lives with Gemma and her two children in Weybridge, Surrey. However, on September 25, the cat jumped into a neighbour’s van before going on a ride to its end destination of Shepperton Community Recycling Centre, some four miles away.
After arriving at the centre, the van’s door was opened and the cat came scuttling out. "The neighbour wasn't sure whose cat it was but I think mine is the only tabby down the road and so we realised quite quickly it was Opie,” Gemma said.
"From that day onwards I was backwards and forwards from the tip but as you can imagine it's such a busy, noisy and hectic place that it felt like such a mammoth task. I thought how am I going to get him back?"
Appeal posters were put up at the centre, before the site’s manager called the 38-year-old to report a sighting of the cat. The centre’s workers, such as Mark, Adam and Trevor, regularly gave Gemma phone updates on fresh sightings and early access onto the site.
Gemma said the trio, as well as everyone else who supported the rescue mission, were “amazing all the way through”. Despite frequently being spotted, “nobody could catch him”, with this cat-and-mouse chase going on for three weeks.
At this point, the trauma and orthopaedic nurse began to lose hope of finding him. She eventually contacted Surrey Missing Pet Support C.I.C. via Facebook, and the charity arranged the setting-up of wildlife cameras and bait traps inside the centre.
Good news finally arrived on October 12 as Gemma received word of his capture. She said: "I just got this frantic phone call at 11.30pm at night saying 'I've got him! I've got him! Vickie, from the charity, had sat there all evening waiting for him. I just couldn't believe it."
Opie’s extended absence was particularly felt by Gemma’s 11-year-old daughter Amelie, who the cat was particularly important to. The mum added: "It was just horrible - each day Amelie was saying to me there are lots of machines there and he's going to be really scared."
One of many “near misses” saw the four-legged beast run out from a pile of wooden freight containers after they were smashed. He was also nearly pronged by a forklift truck, with Gemma saying: "He must have used about 1,000 lives while he was there!
"But he still managed to come home without a mark on him. The funny thing is that when he came home he just looked at me and started purring and jumped in my arms and licked me - it was really sweet."
However, the experience seemed to affect Opie, who began making "distressed" and "horrific" crying noises in between the purrs. As a result, Gemma woke Amelie, adding: "The only way I was going to stop this is to wake up my girl because she and the cat are so attached.
"So I woke Amelie at midnight and I was crying and trying to compose myself. I told her and she ran downstairs and scooped him up and he stopped the weird crying."
Amelie was said to be “really overwhelmed”, and kept asking to be pinched as she thought it was a dream. While Opie was checked over by the vet upon returning home, he is now "very clingy and scared".
Gemma continued: “The fact that he is now home is like all my Christmases come at once, and for Amelie everybody knows that Opie is her boy. The staff at the recycling centre went above and beyond for my family and I took down some goodies for them just to say thank you.
“They were even humble about that saying they didn't want anything. I was just blown away at how lovely they were and I spoke to the site's manager and they are making a £500 donation to the charity as well - incredible."
