Georgie Knox of Alberta, Canada was on her way to work when it happened. She suddenly hear a thud sound and believed her car had struck and killed a coyote on the road. However, after driving the 20 miles to work, she discovered the animal was very much alive, but stuck in the grill of her car.

As reported by the Sacramento Bee, as she stopped at a traffic light close to her place of employment a female construction worker came up to the car to tell her she had a coyote stuck in her grill.

Knox said when she got out of the car to look, the poor hitchhiking coyote was looking and blinking at her.

Alberta Fish and Wildlife release coyote from car grill

As soon as she found out what had happened, Knox contacted Alberta Fish and Wildlife about the hitchhiking coyote and went on to share photos of the animal on Facebook, firmly embedded in the grill of her vehicle.

Knox said Alberta Fish and Wildlife soon arrived at the scene and freed the coyote from the grill of her car, which she said miraculously had no serious injuries from his experience. Despite his fur-raising ride on the front of the vehicle, all the way from Airdrie to Calgary at “highway speed,” when the biologist checked the coyote he said he was fine to be released.

Hitchhiking coyote released in Kananaskis

According to Knox’s Facebook post, authorities then released the lucky coyote back into the wild in Kananaskis, no doubt totally confused about his new whereabouts, but luckily in good health. Knox went on to add that “mother nature” apparently had different plans for the special little coyote.

As noted by the New York Daily News, the driver’s September 9 Facebook post soon went viral and at the time of writing has been shared more than 222,000 times on the social media platform, with a massive, more than 62,000 comments to the post. A Video included in the post has received more than 32 million views.

Facebook reactions to the tale of the hitchhiking coyote

While one user insisted on making multiple spam comments about how to watch the popular adaptation of Stephen King’s “It,” many Facebook users said how incredible it was that the coyote had survived and how lucky the animal was to survive the experience. One said St. Francis and St. Christopher had obviously put in some overtime on the hitchhiking coyote too.

However Caiden Park rightfully commented to say “That's why we don't just keep going and assume that you hit and killed the thing.” Kay Ng also noted that Knox hadn’t even stopped for a second when she believed she hit the coyote and just waited until someone notified her. She did add that on the bright side, at least the animal was OK.