Kitten Saved From Minivan’s Engine Bay Finds Her Forever Home With the Mechanic Who Rescued Her

It was quite a journey, but thankfully all ended well for this sweet (and very lucky) kitty.
By Chad Taylor March 21, 2022 Advertisement Pin FB More Tweet Email Send Text Message Print
man holding tiny kitten in his hands Credit: Evdoha / Getty

A kitten looking for a place to curl up and nap wound up taking a road trip straight to her forever home.

Jackie Sanderson of Cumberland County, Penn., was driving her daughter to school when she heard strange sounds coming from the front of her Hyundai Entourage minivan. She turned the radio down, initially thinking that's where the noises were coming from, but continued to hear…something. After listening more closely, she realized there was a cat meowing in her engine bay!

Pulling her car off to the side of the road, Sanderson began looking for the kitten, even recruiting some passersby to help in the search.

"We couldn't see the cat anywhere, we just heard meows," she told WPMT . "Another lady came with some tuna to try and lure it out, but that didn't work either."

Unsure of how to proceed and concerned about the kitten's wellbeing, Sanderson called the Camp Hill Police Department, which dispatched Officer Tricia Moench.

"All I could really do was look under the hood," Moench told WPMT. "I'm not equipped to disassemble a vehicle."

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Sanderson and Moench called some local repair shops to see if anyone could help extract the kitten, eventually settling on taking the Entourage to the Goodyear Tire Service in Lemoyne. There, mechanic Kevin Howell and a couple of his coworkers managed to finally lay eyes on the 8-week-old black kitten that had snuggled up in Sanderson's engine bay.

"We put the car higher up in the air and shined flashlights up inside and I saw her, so we put the car down and someone finally got a hold of her," Howell told WPMT.

Once extracted from the engine bay, the kitten was placed in a carrier and Howell has since adopted her, naming her Gabby.

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It's more common than you might think for cats to hide in engine bays, especially during colder months when they seek out places that provide shelter from the elements. During those months, experts suggest making a little extra noise in the morning or letting your car idle a bit longer to give cats a chance to get their bearings and escape before you drive away.