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Green Sea Turtle (Chelonia mydas)
Stranding Location: Sullivan’s Island, SC
Arrival Date: 1/19/20
Age: Juvenile
Weight: 5.98 lbs (2.72 kg)
Case History
Shawn Leighton found Harbor View at the Station 17 path on Sullivan’s Island. He noticed some lacerations to Harbor’s carapace (top shell) and called the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR). Shawn carried Harbor to a safe location and waited for the transporters to arrive. Mary Pringle and Barb Gobien, SCDNR Transporters, met Shawn on Sullivan’s Island, and they transported this injured green to the South Carolina Aquarium for further treatment.
Treatment
Harbor was slightly chilly upon admit at 61° F, so staff cooled the room down to 65° to allow her to slowly warm up. She had a thick layer of sand covering her shell, making it difficult to see the lacerations but radiographs showed two boat strikes on her carapace. One smaller strike was at the top of her shell, near her head and went over nuchal scute at the top of her shell. The other, slightly longer wound, ran parallel to her spine, directly over her left lung. The x-ray made it difficult to visualize the wounds, so we lightly sedated her and took a CT scan. The scan showed that the smaller top strike may have affected her vertebrae, and the larger one broke a few ribs, but her left lung looked good. Our next step was to monitor her flipper use because a concern with boat strike injuries near the spine is the potential for rear flipper paralysis. Her front flippers were working normally, but she wasn’t using her back flippers as well. However, she had a deep pain response, which tells us there is still a chance she could regain full use of the rear flippers, and that swelling and trauma from the injury may be causing the issue. Sometimes it takes time for the injured area to heal and swelling to subside before they begin using the flippers fully. Staff got Harbor cleaned up and gently flushed the propeller wounds to get any sand and debris out of them. They then packed the smaller wound with topical antibiotics and covered it in medical grade honey. For the larger laceration, staff applied a Wound V.A.C ® (Vacuum-assisted closure device). A Wound V.A.C ® provides gentle suction, keeping the wound free of fluid, blood, and bacteria while also helping to promote new tissue granulation. Once the Wound V.A.C ® was running, Harbor was given some vitamins, fluids, was started on antibiotics and was left to rest for the remainder of the day.
Update
January 26, 2020: Harbor has been doing well since admit. The days following her admit, she took it easy on a waterbed and received pain meds. Since she wasn’t being fed, we gave her fluids and vitamins daily to help replace nutrients. On the 22nd, we put her in the tank with the wound V.A.C ® still attached and she was swimming great! She still didn’t have great use of back flippers, but she was able to move around with her front flippers. The following day, we offered her food and she ate immediately! Every day since then, she goes in her tank in the morning, eats, swims around for the entire day and comes out every afternoon before staff leaves. We take her out in the afternoon because we don’t want her Wound V.A.C ® running at night. In a perfect world, we would want the Wound V.A.C ® running all the time, but with our patients living in water, it’s difficult to keep an air tight seal while they’re in water. While she’s in her tank during the day the Wound V.A.C ® tubing is curled up on her back and she’s able to swim freely. We pull her at night, and put her in a nice and comfortable waterbed with the Wound V.A.C ® running overnight. We are still accessing the extent of the injury to her spine and her rear flipper use; her prognosis is guarded.
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