'It's a miracle': Cat that a family thought they cremated turns back up at their home
Frankie, a 16-year-old tabby cat in Cheshire, England, didn't come home on May 19 and his family was devastated. Rachel Fitzsimons, her husband John, and their children Thea, 10, and Remy 7, launched a search party to find their missing pet.
The news was especially distressing to young Remy who slept with Frankie every night. "He cried and cried," Rachel told Manchester Evening News.
A few days later, the family was driving on the highway near their home and saw a dead cat on the side of the road that appeared to be Frankie. The cat was badly mangled and they didn't want to get too close a look, in case the decapitated feline was their beloved pet.
Rachel reached out to local authorities to pick up the cat's remains.
"We called the Highways agency who were very helpful and went out several times to look for the body. I gave them a description of Frankie; a fluffy tabby with a white tummy, and the dead cat matched that," Rachel said.
The Highways England staff said the cat matched the markings described by Rachel. They collected what was left of the cat and handed it over in a box to the family. They didn't look at the cat because it was in such terrible shape.
The family decided to have the cat cremated and when its ashes were returned, Remy slept with them in his bed for a few days. "We were all in tears for days afterwards," Rachel said.
On June 10, three weeks after Frankie went missing, John heard a familiar meow at the door.
''My husband heard a meow outside and then I heard him shouting," Rachel said. We all ran out and there was Frankie! Remy was crying and asking: 'Is he real?' It was an amazing moment."
The family had to have been in complete shock after they had already accepted his death.
"It's a miracle," Remy declared according to the BBC. "We thought he had died."
"He was bedraggled and very thin," Rachel remarked. But after a few good meals and a checkup at the vet, Frankie was his old self again. "We've no idea where he's been but just feel so lucky to have him back," she said.
"My two children are thrilled to have him home, they are making a big fuss of him, and he's back on Remy's bed each night," Rachel said.
Now that all of the sadness has turned to joy, Rachel has found some humor in the story. "We cremated someone else's cat," she said.
If there's a bright side for the poor cat that was hit by a car on the highway and its family, at least its remains were treated with respect. It would be wonderful if somehow they found out that their cat was treated respectfully after meeting such a terrible demise. It would also give them some closure after losing their pet.
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An Irish woman went to the doctor for a routine eye exam. She left with bright neon green eyes.
It's not easy seeing green.
Did she get superpowers?
Going to the eye doctor can be a hassle and a pain. It's not just the routine issues and inconveniences that come along when making a doctor appointment, but sometimes the various devices being used to check your eyes' health feel invasive and uncomfortable. But at least at the end of the appointment, most of us don't look like we're turning into The Incredible Hulk. That wasn't the case for one Irish woman.
Photographer Margerita B. Wargola was just going in for a routine eye exam at the hospital but ended up leaving with her eyes a shocking, bright neon green.
At the doctor's office, the nurse practitioner was prepping Wargola for a test with a machine that Wargola had experienced before. Before the test started, Wargola presumed the nurse had dropped some saline into her eyes, as they were feeling dry. After she blinked, everything went yellow.
Wargola and the nurse initially panicked. Neither knew what was going on as Wargola suddenly had yellow vision and radioactive-looking green eyes. After the initial shock, both realized the issue: the nurse forgot to ask Wargola to remove her contact lenses before putting contrast drops in her eyes for the exam. Wargola and the nurse quickly removed the lenses from her eyes and washed them thoroughly with saline. Fortunately, Wargola's eyes were unharmed. Unfortunately, her contacts were permanently stained and she didn't bring a spare pair.
- YouTube youtube.com
Since she has poor vision, Wargola was forced to drive herself home after the eye exam wearing the neon-green contact lenses that make her look like a member of the Green Lantern Corps. She couldn't help but laugh at her predicament and recorded a video explaining it all on social media. Since then, her video has sparked a couple Reddit threads and collected a bunch of comments on Instagram:
“But the REAL question is: do you now have X-Ray vision?”
“You can just say you're a superhero.”
“I would make a few stops on the way home just to freak some people out!”
“I would have lived it up! Grab a coffee, do grocery shopping, walk around a shopping center.”
“This one would pair well with that girl who ate something with turmeric with her invisalign on and walked around Paris smiling at people with seemingly BRIGHT YELLOW TEETH.”
“I would save those for fancy special occasions! WOW!”
“Every time I'd stop I'd turn slowly and stare at the person in the car next to me.”
“Keep them. Tell people what to do. They’ll do your bidding.”
In a follow-up Instagram video, Wargola showed her followers that she was safe at home with normal eyes, showing that the damaged contact lenses were so stained that they turned the saline solution in her contacts case into a bright Gatorade yellow. She wasn't mad at the nurse and, in fact, plans on keeping the lenses to wear on St. Patrick's Day or some other special occasion.
While no harm was done and a good laugh was had, it's still best for doctors, nurses, and patients alike to double-check and ask or tell if contact lenses are being worn before each eye test. If not, there might be more than ultra-green eyes to worry about.