Kitten Survives 800-Mile Ride Under Car From NJ To Georgia

A kitten survived nearly 800 miles from New Jersey to Georgia wedged in the undercarriage of a car and has found its forever home, according to the rescuers.

The kitten, whom the rescuers named Jersey, hitched a ride with Jadyn Sawyer, a third-year ecology major at the University of Georgia, who drove from Mount Laurel back to campus in August, according to Kelly Bettinger, founder of Cat Zip Alliance – Campus Cats, a cat rescue at the college.

Sawyer parked and left her car for about five minutes. When she returned, she found a small leg sticking out from a hole under the vehicle, Bettinger said in a Facebook post. She did not see or hear the kitten during the drive, and believes the kitten got into her car in New Jersey, Bettinger wrote.

Sawyer called campus police, who called Bettinger's group. Officers could not reach the kitten through the engine. With Sawyer's permission, they tried to remove the lining under the car, but there was no opening large enough to get to him, Bettinger wrote on Facebook. The kitten was limp but responsive.

Sawyer and Bettinger drove the car to Tires Plus, a nearby shop, where mechanics put it on a lift and kept removing parts of the undercarriage "until I could reach in and pull this little boy out," Bettinger wrote.

The shop did not charge for the work, even though Bettinger offered to pay.

The kitten, which was panting, was given water and cooled off, and examined by a veterinarian, Bettinger said, who found no apparent problems beyond a mild kitten cold. He weighed 2.5 pounds, putting him at about 10 weeks old. Bettinger wrote that he "purred up a storm" in the arms of the veterinarian, Dr. Dodd.

"This kitten has had quite the adventure," Bettinger wrote.

That journey has included finding his forever home.

In a Sept. 6 Facebook post, Bettinger described Jersey, by then 3½ months old, as "super sweet, gentle, playful, cuddly." The kitten "gives the cutest little silent meows when you talk to him," she wrote.

The group said he needed a home with other cats. "He tried so hard to make friends with a cat figurine," Bettinger wrote of a visit to her mother's home, where her mother's real cat ignored him.

Jersey was adopted by an Athens, GA-area family in early September, she wrote in an update.

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