After surviving a leap from a pickup truck traveling up to 70 miles per hour on Interstate 70, "Bones the killer cat" wandered into the Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnels -- briefly shutting down eastbound traffic before walking into the arms of a Colorado Department of Transportation employee.
The rescue capped a frantic overnight search after Walt Hagstrom of Denver discovered his 7-year-old cat had somehow slipped out of a small opening in the rear window of his truck while driving home from a 10-day trip to Steamboat Springs.
By 5:30 a.m. Sunday, July 12, Bones had reunited with his family after spending around an hour "cuddling" with tunnel operations staff who rescued him.
"I know Bones is a tough cat -- and he's been through a lot -- but I could not fathom a cat being able to survive jumping out of a Dodge RAM truck at 60-70 miles an hour on a freeway," said Walt's wife, Abby Hagstrom.
On Saturday, the couple left Steamboat Springs in two cars, Abby with their two dogs and Walt with Bones. The truck's broken air conditioner forced Walt to crack open a backseat window. Bones, who Abby said fusses when contained in his cat carrier, rode in the back seat and apparently squeezed through the opening somewhere between Silverthorne and Denver.
Walt didn't realize Bones had escaped until he stopped for gas in Denver and checked the cat's location via an AirTag attached to his collar.
"At first I thought he was joking because it just sounds so crazy," Abby said after her husband called with the news. "As soon as this happened, the first thing that came into my mind was, "Oh my God, how are we going to tell the kids Bones is gone?""
The Hagstroms' 10- and 12-year old children are still at a no-phones sleepaway camp near Steamboat Springs.
"He's such an important part of our family and so special to our kids," Abby said.
Abby said the AirTag placed Bones near Loveland Ski Resort, but because Walt never stopped the car after leaving Silverthorne, the family couldn't pinpoint where the cat had hopped out of the truck.
"So, immediately Walt turned around and drove back up to the base of Loveland Ski Resort and started looking around for Bones," Abby said. "Meanwhile, I turned into a crazy cat lady and called every rescue, every shelter around."
One of those calls pointed her to Summit Lost Pet Rescue, a local nonprofit started in 2020 that boasts over a 90% success rate for finding lost pets. Co-founder Brandon Ciullo said he received a report about a missing cat around 8:30 p.m. Saturday, July 11. He then alerted the Colorado Department of Transportation and organized volunteers to search the area Sunday morning if Bones remained missing.
Abby said volunteers quickly "sprang into action" and posted all over social media.
"They don't know me. They don't know our cat. We don't even live in Summit County, and they were the kindest, most helpful group of people that I've come across in so long," she said.
Following a flurry of online messages and calls, Abby said she and Walt couldn't sleep that night. Around 10:15 p.m., though, Bones' AirTag updated again. This time, it placed him inside the eastbound Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnels. He walked nearly half a mile onto the railed walkway adjacent to the freeway lanes.
"As I put my phone down, I saw that he was in the tunnels," Abby said. "At first, I kind of thought the worst -- he surely didn't make it or somebody hit him."
Bones remained in place for over five more hours while the Hagstroms received no other calls. But shortly after 4 a.m. Sunday, she received a text from a woman who spotted Bones on the "catwalk," as Abby called it, inside the tunnel after seeing Summit Lost Pet Rescue's Facebook post.
"She really is a hero in this story, too," Abby said.
She promptly called Summit County Animal Control, who then contacted the Colorado Department of Transportation. Employees confirmed Bones' location on traffic cameras at 4:25 a.m., according to the department's I-70 mountain corridor communications manager, Austyn Dineen.
Workers then stopped eastbound I-70 traffic for around eight minutes so one employee could safely retrieve the cat.
"He got to that place, which is probably honestly the safest place he could've gotten lost," Abby said. "He's in a high-visibility area, there's light and people were going to see him in there."
Abby believes Bones, who carries the lifelong nickname "the killer cat" thanks to his affinity for hunting mice and "the occasional bird," instinctively sought shelter after surviving a few hours in the dark wilderness.
"He figured out that he wasn't going to last long out there, so he got to safety," she said.
Bones seemed ready for his rescue.
"They (Colorado Department of Transportation workers) told us they weren't totally sure how to grab the cat," Abby said. "He walked straight up to Bones, and Bones walked right up to him. He was really an easy-to-catch cat."
Upon receiving the call, Abby and Walt rushed out the door of their Denver home. Dineen said Bones "cuddled with operations staff" until the couple arrived at the Eisenhower Tunnels around 5:30 a.m.
"As soon as Bones heard our voices, he raced to the door," Abby said. "It was very, very sweet."
Living up to his nickname, Bones returned home without a scratch. Abby joked that he remains on "house arrest" and has spent the past two days catching up on sleep.
Abby said on Sunday, she penned a letter to her children at camp saying, "I can't wait to tell you about Bones' big adventure."
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