Thanks to an alert clerk at the Stop & Shop Supermarket in the Swampscott Mall, Gloria the Cat has a chance of enjoying her remaining eight lives.

The clerk called the Swampscott (Mass.) Police Department when he heard a cat mewing from the inside of a glass-crushing recycling machine. The machine operates by having two grinding gears come together to crush glass upon activation by an internal motor. If another glass had been dropped in, Gloria would have been mutilated.

They unplugged the machine and removed the front so that animal control officer Diane Treadwell could reach in and pry the cat out.

I looked up into the machine. Gloria was up inside, perched on a little shelf maybe an inch wide, between the motor and the two crushers, Treadwell says. There was a space, maybe an inch or an inch and a half wide and when I looked into it, all I could see was a tail.

Treadwell stuck her hand into the space to reach the cat.

I just grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and by her tail and pulled, Treadwell says. Her head got a little stuck trying to get through the narrow part but I wiggled and it came out.

Gloria was totally covered in glass dust.

She had glass dust in her eyes that I flushed out as soon as I could, Treadwell says. But the most amazing thing is that throughout this all, Gloria never scratched or bit.

Gloria was named after disco queen Gloria Gaynor, who performed the 70s hit, “I Will Survive.”

Treadwell added, I cant imagine anyone cruel enough to have put the cat inside the machine. But I do know that Gloria has used up one of her nine lives.

You can make this happy ending complete by adopting Gloria. She’s at the Marblehead Animal Shelter, 44 Village St. Marblehead, Mass. They’re open from 4 to 6 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays and from noon to 3 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Their phone number is 781-631-8664.

[LINK: Wicked Local]