March 1, 2009

Wayne and Ann Crews, pictured above, pose with their cat, Autumn, and Wilbert Davis, a Haynes Furniture employee who rescued the cat from inside a box-spring. (Photo Courtesy of Ann Crews)

Lost Cat Found Living in Mattress: Autumn, a domestic short-hair, is back home but this is no ordinary lost and found story. In her six days away, she survived living in a mattress and narrowly escaped being tossed into a dump thanks to a man's sixth sense.

RICHMOND, Va. -- It was a routine delivery call for Haynes Furniture, but for one skittish cat, the visit left her in a sticky situation she simply couldn't scratch her own way out of.

Two Haynes deliverymen dropped off a new mattress and box-spring for Wayne and Ann Crews, of Richmond, Va., on Feb. 14, and also removed the family's discarded bedroom set, loading it into the truck.

One week later, Haynes was knocking at the Crews' door again, this time with a special delivery: The family's pet cat, Autumn, who had been found previously lodged in the box-spring.

Sneaking into the contraption was apparently easier than it was to get out.

"When the delivery men were gone, we started looking for Autumn, and we just couldn't find her," Ann Crews said. "We turned the house upside down. Our other cats (Zoe and Miss Patty) were distraught, and we knew something was wrong."

The box-spring had served as Zoe's hiding spot just minutes before, when it was resting in the living room floor -- the Crews assumed that Autumn, a domestic short-hair, had sought the same refuge from the commotion, and called Haynes.

But no one at the Haynes' warehouse had seen the cat -- inside a box-spring or out.

Crews refused to take "no" for an answer, relying on a hunch that Autumn was, indeed, stuck in the mattress or its supporting frame.

"There was something in me, in my heart, that I just knew where she was," she said.

Crews posted "missing" fliers around town, and placed an advertisement for Autumn in the local newspaper; but she also continued to call Haynes daily, inquiring about the cat she had rescued from the ASPCA nearly two years ago.

Autumn's owners weren't the only ones left with a sense of unease: Six days later, a Haynes employee felt a similar premonition while he was unloading thrown-away mattresses into a dump.

Something simply was not right, Wilbert Davis, a Haynes warehouse employee, recalled.

"When I moved a particular item, there was something about it that I felt was just off. It was strange," he said.

Then Davis heard a weak, but distinct, "meow."

Davis peered inside the space between the mattress and the box-spring, which had been taped together, and saw Autumn, splayed flat against the surface.

Davis and his co-worker tore the thin lining of the box-spring and hoisted Autumn out of her soon-to-be coffin, and into his arms. He noted that the cat's purple rhinestone collar, and realized that she must be a client's pet.

Autumn appeared just as amazed as Davis was at her predicament, he says.

"She was just looking all in shock. We were both in shock, and just looked at each other, not knowing what was what."

Davis rushed Autumn back to the warehouse, where the cat was fed some milk and scraps from other employees' lunches. Davis had to leave for his other job as a part-time chef, but stuck around the warehouse, monitoring the cat's state.

"I'm an animal lover myself, and when I heard that this customer had been calling every day about her cat, crying and whatever else, I could understand why," he said. "It's like your child. Every day, I pray for my dog along with the rest of my family before I go to work."

Though, for nearly a week, Autumn had been stuck in the box-spring, sprawled like " 'George of the Jungle' after he hits a tree," Davis says, the cat seemed fine. She spent the night at the warehouse, and the next day, journeyed again in the Haynes' delivery truck -- this time, she resided in a carrier case.

"She was the last delivery of the day, and we got her at 5:30 on Saturday evening," Crews recalled. "We were just ecstatic. We hugged her and hugged her and gave her lots of treats."

The Crews family also gave Davis a $50 reward, to thank him for his attentiveness and concern.

Davis says he now intends to split the check in half, and give the other portion to the co-worker who was with him when he first spotted Autumn.

"My heart was telling me to give it to the guy who was with me at the time," Davis said. "I don't want to look like I'm a superhero. I'm just always around for emergencies, it looks like, for some reason."

Autumn's veterinarian found her to be slightly dehydrated, but otherwise issued her a "clean bill of health," Crews said. It's taken a few days for the traumatized cat to find her footing again, but the Crews' expect that she will soon bounce back to her own self.

The family, meanwhile, has been enjoying peaceful nights of sleep, something they desperately lacked while Autumn was missing.

"We just cried ourselves to sleep for a week," Crews said. "We're just so happy, because we thought we would never see Autumn again. God must have been watching over her."

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