Stranded turtle in North Myrtle Beach

(Pictures by Nancy Mercurio)

This morning, a live sea turtle beached herself in North Myrtle Beach. Nancy Mercurio and Karen Fox were able to be there to see the turtle and watch Jerry Gordon from Animal Control pack her up in their truck to take her to meet Charlotte Hope from DNR so she could take the turtle to the SC Aquarium Sea turtle Hospital. Here are some notes from Shane Boylan at the SC Aquarium about the status of the turtle.

"Charlotte (DNR) picked up a severely traumatized loggerhead from NorthMyrtle Beach and arrived at the Aquarium at 7:45 PM. It appears tobe a 2 week+ old boat strike as the wounds already have a fibronecroticmembrane and very significant biofouling. Entire pieces of the carapaceare dead and devoid of keratin which can take a week at least in my experience. Surprisingly, the animal is somewhat active. The spine'sintegrity is in question with only the tail showing any movement. The limbs were not evaluated neurologically tonight due to stress concerns, but there could be paralysis since we saw no intentional movement all night. She received an analgesic cocktail mix, fluids, antibiotics, and an hour worth of wound flushing thanks to the interns. To head off any questions, the wounds are too old to repair. Any manipulation of the broken scutes will likely open tissue to infection. All we can do is administer good supportive care (fluids, antibiotics, etc.) and remove dead tissue as it necroses off the animal. The prognosis is very poor given the depth and number of the wounds. The prop hit "her" at the nuchal scute all the way down to the tail where there was an old, healed wound (unrelated to this more recent injury). Pain management is one of our top concerns, but this animal has survived like this for some time."

Following Pictures by South Carolina Aquarium