Rita

The follow up article was published today in The Messenger:
http://www.challismessenger.com/index.php?accnum=story-10-20080626

Rita the cat found alive and well this week
BY TODD ADAMS
Rita the cat, who had been missing since she fled the scene of a May 1 car accident, was found alive and well June 23.
Although there won't be an "Incredible Journey" cross- country trip home to California for Rita, owners Janet and Brian Hansen are calling the indoor cat's survival over the past two months "our family's second miracle."
The first is that Janet is slowly but surely progressing toward a full recovery from severe injuries that she suffered in the rollover wreck.
"We just can't believe it, after two months" Janet told The Challis Messenger Monday morning, soon after Rita was found. "Wow. We're just blown away."
Daughter Jill Hansen-Twardoski explained that Rita has been "100 percent a house cat" all her life. Up until her Idaho adventure, Rita's closest contact with wildlife had been watching the bird feeder from the window of the Hansen's suburban home.
"We just cried," tears of joy and relief, when Rita was found safe and sound, Janet said. "It seems silly ? she's just one domestic cat ? but she's family.
"It was a miracle. Everyone in Challis has just been wonderful."
Rita's disappearance had come to symbolize the loss, injury and trauma Janet suffered in the accident, husband Brian told The Messenger earlier this month.
Catch a cat
A truck driver spotted a cat along Highway 93 north of Challis a couple of weeks ago and thought nothing about it until he read an account of the missing cat in an issue of The Messenger. He then called the Hansens who asked Duane Wilson, Cottonwood Camp-ground host, to help. Wilson put out food and later friends of the family dropped off a live trap for him.
The traps did the trick. Wilson set them with smelly cat food, one near the accident scene and the second at the campground. Initially, visits from Rita or some other critter failed to trip the door closed, but Monday morning, Rita had finally been captured near the wreck site. She was perhaps a bit thin, but otherwise none the worse for wear.
The May Day car crash just south of Cottonwood Camp-ground had torn the passenger door off the Hansen's vehicle, through which a very frightened cat escaped. Rita's littermate, Silvia, had been in a cat carrier and was unharmed. Silvia returned home with Janet. The family hopes Rita can hitch a ride back to California with friends after the Independence Day holiday for an overdue reunion. In the meantime, she's hanging out at the Lone Pine Animal Hospital.



and the vet hospital sent us these current pix: