AUSTRALIAN BUSHFIRES: CAT RETURNS SAFELY TO NSW FAMILY AFTER SEVEN DAYS MISSING
Source: 7news (Extract)
Posted: Jan 7, 2020
Angel was missing for seven days during bushfires around her NSW family’s home in the Bega Valley.
Ben Symonds and his family feared the worst for their pet cat, Angel. As a fire bore down on their home in the NSW Bega Valley, Angel ran into bushland.
For the next seven days, while the family fought the fire which surrounded and damaged their Bemboka home and cleaned up in the aftermath, Angel was unaccounted for.
Hopes she would return appeared slim. “It was like the apocalypse,” Symonds told 7NEWS.com.au on Tuesday. “The sky was orange all around you. It was just a world of fire. “It was pretty intense. It was raging. It was so hot it hadn’t even left any logs burning. “It completely vaporised things.”
A rag-doll cat aged six-seven years, Angel’s disappearance had “gutted” the family. As days passed, the situation looked increasingly grim. The family called out for her constantly, put food all around the property and banged her food bowl.
“We really expected if she survived she’d be back in 3-4 days,” Symonds said. “We saw not a trace for seven days.”
Joyful discovery
Then, during the clean-up, came a moment of serendipity. “We were all doing stuff around the house – unplugging gutters and repairing stuff,” Symonds said. “Me, my step-dad, and my mum came out all at the same time and we saw Angel sitting on the lawn.
“We didn’t even recognise her. She’s white, fluffy. “She was just brown and orange and just singed and burnt, sitting there looking at us. “We all saw her at the same time and shouted out with joy and just ran to her. “It was a pretty powerful moment.”
Angel was injured but survived, sustaining burns around her ears and weepy eyes. “Miraculously, her feet weren’t damaged at all,” Symonds said. “She was starving, hadn’t eaten for a week. “She was just super cuddly, so affectionate to me. “She was just so happy to be back. She was just non-stop getting cuddles, just going from person to person.”
How Angel survived is a mystery, but Symonds has a theory. “We think she had gotten down a wombat hole – a deep enough one – and just held out,” he said.