A simple hamster adoption was plunged into disarray when one of ten hamsters went rogue in a student’s car.

Emily Tronti, a student at UNF, was on her way to meet with the new parent of one of the nine baby hamsters she had custody of. Rather than just grabbing the little fella from his temporary home — a box — Tronti had to fight her car’s dashboard and door to retrieve the hamster.

Tronti noticed that the soon-to-be-adopted hamster had disappeared when she looked at the box and saw that it was empty. Upon closer inspection, Tronti discovered that the hamster had chewed its way out of the box.

“I’ve lost a couple of them before so I was like, ‘it’s fine. He’s in here somewhere. I’ll find him,’” Tronti told Spinnaker. “After checking everywhere, I couldn’t find him so I just sat in the car and listened for him, and that’s when I heard scratching from inside the dash.”

Unsure of what to do, she went where any hero-in-disguise would go: Facebook. More specifically, the UNF, Class of 2020 Facebook page. Sadly, Tronti was not met with even the slightest suggestion of what to do.

After ripping open the dashboard, Tronti knew the hamster was right within her grasp. One quick swoop and the hamster would be safe — but yet again, tragedy struck.

The hamster had moved to the side of the door.

“I was reaching my hand in there and it scared him,” said Tronti. “He went through the dash more to the other side and he ended up under the plastic on the side of the door.”

Determined to save this hamster’s life, Tronti began ripping up the floor of her car until she reached the plastic siding on the door. Soon, the siding was ripped open as well.

After this intense battle with her own dashboard and car door, Tronti emerged from the fight with the hamster in hand. While successful in her rescue mission, Tronti did not come out unscathed. Her hand took a mighty blow, gashed open, and the dashboard was destroyed. But for Tronti, this mission was complete.

The hamster was safe.

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