rehab - News - The Coastal Star2024-03-29T15:31:49Zhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/rehabBoca Raton: Gumbo Limbo loses rehab license; turmoil surrounds new managementhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/boca-raton-gumbo-limbo-loses-rehab-license-turmoil-surrounds-new-2023-03-29T17:23:19.000Z2023-03-29T17:23:19.000ZMary Kate Leminghttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/MaryKateLeming769<div><p><strong><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}11009465090,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}11009465090,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="11009465090?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="710" /></a></strong><em>Staff and volunteers at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center had to move nine sea turtles to other facilities because Gumbo Limbo no longer had a license to treat them. <strong>Photo provided</strong></em></p>
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<p><strong>By Steve Plunkett</strong></p>
<p>Gumbo Limbo Nature Center’s injured and recuperating sea turtles were moved to other facilities, its veterinarian quit, and the coordinator of its turtle rehabilitation program and her assistant no longer have jobs.<br /> “The rehabilitation facility is CLOSED until further notice,” the city-operated Boca Raton nature center said on its website March 15, later tempering the language to read that the rehab center was in “transition” and “TEMPORARILY CLOSED.”<br /> The unexpected turmoil comes as Boca Raton was preparing to hand off operation of the rehab program to the nonprofit Gumbo Limbo Coastal Stewards, formerly known as the Friends of Gumbo Limbo, which has long paid for the veterinarian and her equipment.<br /> The Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach took six of the program’s turtles; Zoo Miami is caring for two and the Florida Oceanographic Society in Stuart has one. Seven of the turtles are patients; two, named Morgan and Cane, were Gumbo Limbo “residents.”<br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}11009466452,RESIZE_180x180{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}11009466452,RESIZE_180x180{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="11009466452?profile=RESIZE_180x180" width="100" /></a>The turtles were moved March 14, city spokeswoman Anne Marie Connolly said, following the resignation of veterinarian Dr. Maria Chadam and the firings of the rehab program’s coordinator, Whitney Crowder, and her assistant, Emily Mirowski. <br /> Chadam, who cared for Gumbo Limbo’s turtles for more than a decade, said in a resignation letter that the time was overdue for her to focus on other aspects of her life.<br /> “A culmination of events has quelled my optimism to a point where I cannot continue as a key member of this organization. This decision does not reflect a concern related to any one person or on any specific event,” she wrote in her Feb. 13 letter giving 30 days’ notice.<br /> John Holloway, CEO and president of the Coastal Stewards, answered the next day. “Effective immediately, your services under the contract are no longer <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}11009466855,RESIZE_180x180{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}11009466855,RESIZE_180x180{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="11009466855?profile=RESIZE_180x180" width="102" /></a>required,” he wrote.<br /> “Once she resigned, that put our permit in temporary status,” Connolly said.<br /> The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission issues permits for sea turtle research and rehabilitation, with one provision being that a rehab program must have veterinarians on staff.<br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}11009468269,RESIZE_180x180{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}11009468269,RESIZE_180x180{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="11009468269?profile=RESIZE_180x180" width="102" /></a>Crowder, who was the FWC permit holder for the rehab unit, started working at Gumbo Limbo in 2012 as the assistant coordinator. Mirowski, an eight-year staffer, gained worldwide attention in 2019 with a Facebook post about a baby turtle that died after eating 104 bits of plastic. Both were laid off March 13 and ordered not to return to Gumbo Limbo, but are being kept on the payroll until May 22.<br /> “Unfortunately, as far as the staff members … it didn’t work out the way we intended,” Connolly said, praising their contributions to the program. “We would have hoped they stayed onboard.”<br /> With Crowder, the permit holder, no longer employed, the FWC ordered that the turtles be relocated.<br /> Mirowski and Crowder say they were “blindsided” by their terminations when they showed up for individual conferences with city Human Resources Director Danielle Olson. They thought they were going to be given details of what to them was a vague transition plan.<br /> “I thought HR was there to help you,” Crowder said.<br /> In a Feb. 11 letter to human resources, Crowder accused the Coastal Stewards of having “unstable, toxic leadership.” Holloway, she wrote, “manipulates and lies to staff to play people against each other.”<br /> In an interview with <em>The Coastal Star</em>, Crowder said Holloway also told other Gumbo Limbo staffers that the rehab unit was overpaid and that their jobs could be handled part-time.<br /> The city’s spokeswoman downplayed the situation.<br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}11009468659,RESIZE_180x180{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}11009468659,RESIZE_180x180{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="11009468659?profile=RESIZE_180x180" width="101" /></a>“Obviously some people aren’t happy about certain things,” Connolly said.<br /> Holloway forwarded an emailed request for his reaction to Crowder’s assertions to Melissa Perlman, his new public relations consultant.<br /> “Unfortunately John has nothing further to say about past HR/personnel issues involving city employees,” Perlman responded.<br /> Dr. Mike Chouster, who was listed on the permit as Chadam’s backup veterinarian, said he “could have easily provided care if they wanted” but the city instead fired Crowder.<br /> “A lot of what happened doesn’t add up,” he said, noting that Crowder’s and Mirowski’s positions were fully funded in the city’s budget and that no one at the city responded to him when he volunteered his services.<br /> “A lot of the problems stemmed from their CEO,” Chouster said.<br /> At this point, he said, he would turn down a job offer “on principle” unless the city and the nonprofit reorganize. “I think nobody’s going to want to” work there. <br /> Manjunath Pendakur, who chairs the Coastal Stewards board of trustees, said they firmly support Holloway. “We are relying on his sound management and excellent working relationships” with the city, the FWC and others, he said.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}11009468889,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}11009468889,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="11009468889?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="710" /></a><em>Tanks sit empty after the sea turtle patients were moved to other treatment centers. <strong>Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star</strong></em></p>
<p><strong>Beach monitoring continues</strong><br /> The changes in the “hospital-type” rehab program do not affect the nature center’s sea turtle conservation program, which has a separate FWC permit to monitor nests and release hatchlings, said David Anderson, who coordinates the “beach-related” activities.<br /> “My nesting permit is not affected by the current situation at Gumbo Limbo. My staff and I are operating as normal every morning at sunrise conducting nesting surveys,” he said. <br /> The hatchling drop-off box is still at the center, and Anderson’s team will still respond to phone calls about injured, sick or dead sea turtles, taking them wherever the FWC directs, he said. Gumbo Limbo’s emergency number is 561-212-8691; the FWC is at 888-404-3922.<br /> On March 25 his team rescued a turtle in the Intracoastal Waterway near the Spanish River Boulevard bridge that had been hit by a boat propeller, made it comfortable overnight, and then took it the next morning to the Marinelife Center in Juno Beach, he said.<br /> Some of the relocated turtles might recover and be released back into the ocean before the FWC rehab permit is reauthorized. Perlman said the Coastal Stewards have hired an experienced veterinarian, turtle program manager and turtle specialist who will start work and be officially announced in early April.<br /> In an earlier email to interested parties, Holloway said the center’s two “resident” turtles were on “a long overdue vacation” and urged his membership to donate money to bring them back.<br /> “Of course, we will miss Morgan and Cane while they are away, but everyone is committed to welcoming them home as soon as possible,” Holloway wrote, promising “exciting updates” would appear on the group’s social media and website.</p>
<p><strong>What’s next for fired staff?</strong><br /> Mirowski is getting married in May, but because she lost her job, she and her fiancé will hold off on their plan to start a family, she said.<br /> Crowder was less certain. “I know my future will bring me back to sea turtles, but I am just not sure what that looks like at this time,” she said. <br /> A person identified only as “Concerned Citizen” at <a href="http://www.change.org">www.change.org</a> started an internet petition to “Bring Back the Sea Turtles” on March 22. By March 28 it had more than 3,000 signatures.<br /> One of those signing was Chadam, who wrote:<br /> “The city council should be ashamed. The nature center management should be ashamed. People aren’t thronging to the nature center to look at some butterflies, a broken down tower, lack of parking, and a building full of mold and termites ... and the beloved pufferfish is gone so good luck!”<br /> Kirby, the center’s celebrity porcupine puffer fish, died Feb. 26.<br /> Another signer was Cody Mott, who works for Inwater Research Group Inc. in Jensen Beach, rescuing sea turtles trapped at Florida Power & Light Co.’s nearby nuclear reactor. Mott was invited to join the Coastal Stewards’ Science and Technology Advisory Committee in 2022.<br /> “Mr. Holloway never consulted the committee during the process to transition sea turtle rehabilitation from the City of Boca Raton to Coastal Stewards,” Mott wrote on the petition. When Chadam resigned, “the committee was not consulted. ... In the 12 months I sat on STAC it never met, despite Mr. Holloway being the chair.”<br /> The city started negotiating last fall for the Coastal Stewards to assume responsibility for the rescue, rehabilitation and release program. As part of the arrangement, donations collected at the door, which used to go to the Stewards, will now be used for maintenance and improvements.<br /> The city owns Gumbo Limbo and the surrounding Red Reef Park; tax dollars from the Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District cover all salaries, operations and improvements.<br /> The rehab program has grown tremendously over the years, Connolly said.<br /> While the city and the Beach and Park District “want to support the success of the program, both organizations believe the animal rescue and veterinary component of this program can be better served by a nonprofit organization with fundraising capabilities, membership support, and the flexibility that local government agencies don’t have,” she wrote in an email. Years ago, she noted, Boca Raton transitioned all operations of the Tri-County Animal Rescue west of the city to a nonprofit.</p></div>Delray Beach: Wellness center, offices plan move to historic train station after rehabhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/delray-beach-wellness-center-offices-plan-move-to-historic-train-2021-02-03T17:39:14.000Z2021-02-03T17:39:14.000ZMary Kate Leminghttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/MaryKateLeming<div><p><strong>By Jane Smith</strong></p>
<p>The historic Seaboard Air Line Railway Station in Delray Beach will be renovated and become home to the city’s Health and Wellness Center and Human Resources offices, city commissioners decided Jan. 12.<br /> The $2.6 million rehabilitation cost will come from two sources, Public Works Director Missie Barletto said at the workshop. <br /> The bulk, $1.8 million, will come from an insurance payout after vandals set the station on fire in February 2020. Her department will contribute another $209,000, leaving about a $630,000 gap.<br /> She estimated that moving the Health and Wellness Center would save $530,000 in rent over 10 years. The center is in a privately owned building at 525 NE Third Ave. It provides annual physicals, flu shots, X-rays, acute care and generic drugs at no cost to city employees and their families.<br /> “We do not have dates for the construction completion for the depot as the construction management company is still in the planning, design and permit phase. In general, we expect construction to be complete within two years,” Gina Carter, city spokeswoman, wrote on Jan. 22 in response to a question from The Coastal Star.<br /> The wellness and human resources centers will move into the facility when it’s complete, she wrote.<br /> Moving Human Resources will free up space in City Hall.<br /> The train station sits just west of Interstate 95 and north of Atlantic Avenue. Designed by Gustav Maass in the Mediterranean Revival style, the station was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. The city listed it on the Local Register of Historic Places in 1988. <br /> Amtrak last used the train station in 1995. <br /> Delray Beach paid $1.58 million in 2005 for the historic train station on nearly 1 acre. At one time, commissioners discussed spending $325,000 to renovate it. <br /> A Fire Department official toured the site on Feb. 25, 2020, the day of the fire, Roger Cope, a Delray Beach architect, told the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency Board. The official determined the walls were structurally sound, said Cope, who was involved with restoring the train station. <br /> “But the wooden structure supporting the roof was destroyed,” Cope said.<br /> The station can be restored, he said.<br /> “The train station did not have sprinklers to prevent the fire from spreading,” said Bill Bathurst, then a CRA board member. “Our historic gems need to be protected.”</p></div>LOVING CARE: Injured turtle returns to the seahttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/loving-care-injured-turtle-returns-to-the-sea2012-11-29T16:46:26.000Z2012-11-29T16:46:26.000ZMary Kate Leminghttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/MaryKateLeming769<div><p style="text-align:center;"><strong><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960413078,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960413078,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="538" alt="7960413078?profile=original" /></a></strong><em>A crowd of well-wishers gathers to watch Ryan Butts release Cindy in the Atlantic Ocean. <strong>Photos by Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star</strong></em></p>
<p style="text-align:left;"><strong>By Ron Hayes</strong><br /><br />Giving the turtle a name was easy. Giving her back to the sea took months.<br /> On July 28, a loggerhead turtle arrived at the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center without a name, without a left flipper, without much chance of surviving.<br /> Two fishermen had brought her to the city marina in Pompano Beach that Saturday night. A shark had taken the left front flipper. Her right flipper was nearly severed and, judging by the teeth marks, her head had been in the shark’s mouth.<br /> “Sea turtles are usually only attacked if they’re already sick or injured,” explained Ryan Butts, the center’s turtle rehabilitation coordinator. “They float when they’re sick or injured, and that makes them vulnerable, so it’s amazing she got away.”<br /> Butts and his team of volunteers named their patient Cindy, and nursed her for the next three months. Her right flipper was sutured, her blood drawn to monitor glucose levels, her wounds cleansed daily and treated with honey, a natural disinfectant and antibiotic.<br /> And then, on Nov. 15, Cindy went down to the sea again.<br /> “You almost feel like your children are going off to kindergarten for the first time,” said Butts. “There’s a certain sadness, but that’s overshadowed by the happiness and pride you feel.”<br /> Can a turtle conquer the ocean waves without a left front flipper?<br /> “They learn to adapt with very little problem at all,” he said. “The propulsion comes from their front flippers, with the rear used for steering, so Cindy will use her right rear flipper to compensate.”<br /> As he spoke, a camera crew from television’s National Geographic Wild channel scurried about, filming the preparations. In town to record a segment about the center’s new artificial reef tank, they had happily found themselves able to document Cindy’s release as well.<br /> Nearby, a dozen children lined up to sign a Bon Voyage poster:<br /> Enjoy the seas.<br /> Take care.<br /> Good luck.<br /> We will miss you.<br /> Cindy is the man!</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960412887,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960412887,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="538" alt="7960412887?profile=original" /></a></em><em>Ryan Butts (left) and assistants used a kiddie pool on a landscaping cart to transfer Cindy from her blue plastic home to the ocean.</em></p>
<p style="text-align:left;"><br /> Shortly before 4:30 p.m., Butts and three assistants lifted her out of the blue plastic tank that had been her hospital room and placed her on scales. Cindy had come to the center weighing 115 pounds. She was leaving at 130.<br /> Transferred to a green wading pool atop a cart, they wheeled her out of the rehab center to an ATV, climbed aboard and drove away, followed by other ATVs and the National Geographic crew.<br /> Traveling slowly, the cavalcade rolled into the parking lot and through the gate, crossed North Ocean Boulevard to Red Reef Park, and climbed the dunes.<br /> On the beach below, nearly 350 men, women and children — especially children — awaited her arrival, alerted by the Friends of Gumbo Limbo.<br /> Cindy remained unimpressed by the attention.<br /> “There’s a sandbar not far offshore,” Butts said, “so we may have to give her a little nudge.”<br /> As he spoke, a black thundercloud sailed in from the west.<br /> Butts and three or four volunteers lifted Cindy from her wading pool and placed her gently into the rising tide as the crowd broke into cheers, hoots and applause.</p>
<p style="text-align:left;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960412866,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960412866,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="538" alt="7960412866?profile=original" /></a><em>Nearly 350 well-wishers braved the surf and an impending downpour to watch Cindy return to the ocean.</em></p>
<p style="text-align:left;"><br /> Butts followed along in the surf as the turtle swam into the waves, then south.<br /> Out on the sandbar, a lone nature photographer named Ben Hicks kept watch.<br /> Moments later, as the first fat raindrops fell, he raised an arm and signaled to Butts.<br /> Cindy had passed the sandbar under her own power.<br /> She was gone.<br /> She was home. </p></div>Back in Business: Gumbo Limbo resumes sea turtle rescue, thanks to new tanks, recertificationhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/back-in-business-gumbo-limbo-resumes-sea-turtle-rescue-thanks-to-2012-08-30T14:30:00.000Z2012-08-30T14:30:00.000ZMary Kate Leminghttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/MaryKateLeming769<div><p></p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960401892,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960401892,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="576" alt="7960401892?profile=original" /></a><em>Ryan Butts, the turtle rehabilitation coordinator at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center in Boca Raton, works with volunteers Sue Comoglio (from left), Lloyd Wiener and and Connie Thomas-Mazur on Cindy, who was injured and lost her left flipper in a shark attack.</em> <strong><em>Photos by Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star</em></strong></p>
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<p style="text-align:center;"><strong><em>Photo <a href="http://thecoastalstar.ning.com/photo/photo/slideshow?albumId=2331112:Album:77763">slideshow</a><br /></em></strong></p>
<p><strong>By Ron Hayes</strong><br /> <br /> On Saturday, July 28, Ryan Butts and his wife, Kristen, were looking forward to a quiet evening at Big City Tavern on Las Olas Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale.<br /> He ordered the seared sea scallops. She had the rigatoni with chicken, Roma and sun-dried tomatoes.<br /> Just a relaxing night out with friends …<br /> And then, shortly before 8:30, Ryan’s cell phone rang.<br /> A shark attack off Pompano Beach.<br /> The female victim, a teenager, had been rescued by a passing fisherman and brought ashore at the city marina in serious, very serious, condition.<br /> An hour later, Butts was rushing toward Boca Raton with his patient clinging to life in the back of a Mazda SUV.<br /> The patient, a 115-pound loggerhead turtle, about 15 years old, had lost her left front flipper to the shark. The right flipper was nearly severed. Judging by the teeth marks, her head had been in the shark’s mouth.<br /> By early August, that injured loggerhead had a name. <br /> She’s Cindy. The nearly severed flipper has been sutured, and she’s receiving daily care in a large blue tank at the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center off North Ocean Boulevard.<br /> For the first time in more than a year, injured turtles are being treated once more at Gumbo Limbo. In August 2011, the center let its rehab certification expire while a new, $2.5 million sea tank pavilion was being built only yards away. Too much noise. The pavilion opened on June 22 — four tanks displaying four distinct South Florida marine habitats — and now the turtle rehab pavilion is back in business, too. A permanent certification has been issued by the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the grand re-opening to the public is planned for later this month.<br /> “Sea turtles are usually only attacked if they’re already sick or injured,” says Butts, 35, the center’s new turtle rehabilitation coordinator. “They float when they’re sick or injured, and that makes them vulnerable, so it’s amazing Cindy got away. Her injuries were a few days old when she came to us, so I don’t know how. I’d say the shark possibly went after her thinking the turtle was almost dead and Cindy had more life than he thought and was able to put up enough of a fight to get away.”</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960402277,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960402277,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="576" alt="7960402277?profile=original" /></a><em> Uno’s beak was injured by a motorboat.</em></p>
<p style="text-align:left;"><br /> Not far from Cindy, in another tank, a green turtle named Uno is recuperating from a boat strike off Hobe Sound. Look closely. See? A V-shaped slice out of her beak.<br /> And here’s Shannon, another green, found by a fisherman in Cocoa Beach. She ate a fishing filament and suffers from fibropapilloma tumors.<br /> Lily, also a green, was caught by a fishhook, ate the line and passed the hook, which snagged in her tail.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960402459,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960402459,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="576" alt="7960402459?profile=original" /></a><em>Ryan Butts and Connie Thomas-Mazur work on the turtle Lily, whose flipper was infected by a fishhook.</em></p>
<p style="text-align:left;"><br /> At Gumbo Limbo, every patient gets a “private room” — 10 tanks, 10 turtles — and Butts to oversee their care.<br /> “To me, it’s like working with dinosaurs,” he says, grinning with enthusiasm. “Turtles have been around unchanged for 50 million years. I can come to work and care for a dinosaur every day!”<br /> It’s not the sort of life you’d predict for a man who grew up in Grand Rapids, Mich., catching box turtles with friends, housing them in a bucket all summer, setting them free when school began.<br /> “I was a bartender in college,” he recalls. “Loving life. Having a great time. Then I went to the Keys on vacation and fell in love with it.”<br /> One day, he stumbled across the Turtle Hospital on Marathon and was instantly entranced. “I was like an 11-year-old kid,” he remembers, “trying to peek through the fence.”<br /> While pursuing a degree in biology at Aquinas College back in Grand Rapids, he worked summer jobs at the Turtle Hospital and was hired full-time in 2006. A year ago, he came to Gumbo Limbo.<br /> “Each one is unique,” Butts says. “They have their own personalities. Some prefer certain foods over others. Some prefer certain people over others. I’ve had some that will eat out of my hand, and some like to have their back scrubbed. They’re graceful, gentle creatures. A turtle never hurt anybody.”<br /> Since Uno arrived on June 15, the center has taken in nine injured turtles and lost three. <br /> “I hate to say you see so many injuries you get used to it,” Butts says. “Some are devastating, and some are just the cycle of life. What’s tragic is that so much of it is preventable. We had one loggerhead who died, and when we did a necroscopy we found 150 cigarette butts in its stomach.”<br /> Turtles mistake them for shrimp.<br /> A plastic grocery bag looks like a jellyfish underwater. Boat propellers carve their flippers and beaks. Filament line takes 500 years to break down.<br /> In other words, some human beings can be sharks, too, and other human beings are saviors.<br /> Butts doesn’t save turtles alone. On a recent Thursday morning, he watched as Connie Thomas-Mazur pulled on latex gloves and climbed into the tank to cleanse Cindy’s wounds.<br /> Along with volunteers Sue Comoglio, Robyn Morigerato and Lloyd Wiener, she is fully trained to perform medical duties and give the turtles medication. <br /> All four also are members of the center’s board.<br /> “This board is very hands-on,” she laughs, crouching to swab Cindy’s healing flipper.<br /> They draw blood, monitor glucose levels, insert vitamin drips and cleanse and treat the wounds with honey, a natural disinfectant and antibiotic.<br /> “Right now, our main concern is infection,” Butts says. “If we can save her right flipper, she can swim.”<br /> While Thomas-Mazur cared for Cindy, Butts carried Lily over to a table and started to rinse the wound in her left flipper. <br /> As he worked, a gaggle of children from a local summer camp spotted him and rushed to the fence. Fingers gripping the chain-link, they pulled themselves up, straining to see, eyes wide, mouths agape — just like that enchanted 11-year-old boy Butts became when he first found the Turtle Hospital.<br /> What happened?! <br /> “She got an infection when a fishhook was removed from her left flipper,” he explained, holding Lily high so the children could see.<br /> The turtle’s flippers flapped madly, as if she were trying to fly, and a great cry of delight rose from the children.<br /> “She’ll be ready to go home pretty soon,” Butts assured <br /> them. <br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960402099,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960402099,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="576" alt="7960402099?profile=original" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em>The turtles’ progress is tracked on a dry-erase board.</em><br /></p>
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