Late last month, a truck driver parked beside a busy road in the United Kingdom turned his head when he heard “desperate little cries” through the open window.
The driver followed the sounds to an empty cardboard box abandoned in the bushes by the roadway.
Then he saw them — a group of terrified kittens hiding in the brambles.
Needing expert help, the driver contacted Nicole McGawley of Carrington Animal Rescue, who headed over as soon as she could.
McGawley felt her pulse quicken as she noticed scratch and teeth marks on the box, evidence of the kittens’ difficult escape.
“Seeing the box but not seeing the kittens, I thought I was too late,” McGawley told The Dodo. “But then I heard it — a couple of meows.”
The kittens were clearly terrified, barely 5 weeks old. McGawley grabbed the bravest baby and held her against her chest. She tried in vain to catch the remaining kittens, but couldn’t manage to secure them. The rescuer couldn’t stay long — she had to pick up her daughter — and so she drove back with a single kitten and a broken heart, vowing to return for the rest.
“That drive away from them was one of the hardest things I've done,” the rescuer wrote in a Facebook post.
Luckily, plenty of animal lovers were ready to pitch in. McGawley contacted her rescue staffer, Jade, who raced over with her sons and husband. With assistance from a second truck driver who’d seen the kittens earlier that day, the rescuers spent hours searching the dark wilderness and managed to catch three more kittens.
“The relief was unreal,” McGawley said.
The next day, a Good Samaritan found the last two kittens hiding in a tree. At last, all of the siblings were reunited.
Safe at their foster home, the kittens received flea treatment and ate plenty of food.
Today, the siblings, now named Dolly, Jolene, Andy, Tennessee, Doralee and Romeo, are doing much better, waiting to find their forever homes.
“They are playing, eating [and] going mental like kittens should!” McGawley said.
