Nichols was transported to the vet school by summer interns Charlie Lynch and David Allred. Her flipper was broken, mangled and twisted, and she had a deep crushing injury to her carapace near her spine. Although she had to be in pain she was soldiering on at the hospital, swimming and eating while she awaited her date with Drs. Grafinger and Roe. Both of these surgeons have worked on our patients before and are incredibly skilled at successfully piecing sea turtles back together.

One of the very cool things about being an intern with us is that you’ll do and see things that you never could have imagined: Charlie and David suited up and entered the surgical suite with our girl. After she was peacefully sleeping they watched the surgeons carefully clean the wound, removing all of the necrotic tissue and bone that had been pushed into the body cavity. Once the gunk was gone her collapsed lung inflated and everyone could literally take a deep breath!

Then it was on to the flipper. We could see that the outside was a mess, but without a look inside we could only hope that it could be saved.  The X-ray was quite graphic, but the vets were undeterred as they confidently reset the bones and sutured the wound. The surgery was now complete and it was time to wake Nichols from her slumber and get her settled in the car for her trip back home.

Her recovery since her return has been amazing to watch. The repair on her carapace requires frequent flushing, repacking and a special bandage to keep it dry. While we had hoped she would take it easy on her reset flipper she insists on using it to navigate around and around for hours. She’s probably thrilled to find out that it actually “works” again! And she’s got a great appetite now that she’s feeling so much better.

Nichols is just one of the many who benefit from our long-term collaboration with the vet school, and the close relationship we have with our turtle vets Dr. Craig Harms (at CMAST) and Dr. Greg Lewbart at the University. As I write this another patient, “Holden III” is back home from yesterday’s successful surgery on her horrendous head injury. Hopefully her recovery will be just as complete as “Holden II’s” a patient from several years ago. His injury was almost identical and he was successfully rehabilitated, released and hopefully has been leading a happy sea turtle life.