[MUSIC PLAYING]
NARRATOR: It's a happy day at the crowded
South Carolina Aquarium sea turtle care center.
One of the patients is going home.
WILLOW MELAMET: So What's really special about today
is that we're releasing Hopper, one of our juvenile kemp
ridlies.
And that will hopefully open up some extra, much needed, tank
space here down in the hospital.
NARRATOR: Three months ago Hopper
was sucked out of the ocean by a ship dredging the channel
into Charleston Harbor.
Luckily for Hopper, his injuries were minor.
And he's made a speedy recovery.
Hopper's tank mate Glenn was also
a victim of the same dredge.
He's had a much tougher time.
One of his lungs was crushed in the dredge's metal grates.
And he's had several surgeries attempting to repair it.
The staff worried he'll never make it back to the ocean.
It's a bad prognosis in terms of release.
It may not kill him, but he'll never be able to dive
or correct his buoyancy.
NARRATOR: Hopper was the lucky one, suffering only
some abrasions to his shell.
And today, he'll be swimming in the sea once again.
I remember when he first came in.
All that Doctor Shane was like, oh
it's a miracle that this turtle was even alive.
And really the only thing that saved him was the fact
that he's small in size.
He was able to go right through those metal grates
where the loggerheads aren't as lucky.
He really is a miracle turtle.
NARRATOR: Dredging activity was shut down
for the rest of the summer after causing
several sea turtle deaths.
So it's now safe for Hopper to go home.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Rehabilitating an animal that otherwise would not survive
without intervention is great.
It's very rewarding to come out and release
some endangered species.
And you know that you are in your own small way
doing better for that species or in sea turtles in general.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
NARRATOR: At the turtle hospital Dr. Boylan's team
continues to try to fix Glenn's lung over the next two months.
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They have to find a way to permanently close the bulla,
or air pocket, caused by the ruptured lung.
Otherwise, Glenn will never be able to dive under water.
But nobody is optimistic.
DR. SHANE BOYLAN: No matter what we do, we
will not be able to close it.
And the turtle were permanently have a space, a dead space,
in the lung and will be unable to dive.
This could mean non-releasable status for him.
NARRATOR: Before losing all hope,
Dr. Boylan gets a tip from his friends
at the Charleston Veterinary Referral Center.
They recommend he tries a technique called a blood patch,
a procedure often done with cats and dogs.
But it's never been done on a sea
turtle before for good reason.
Normally when you have a bulla,
human or dog or any other animal,
you'll open up the chest.
You'll find it.
Surgically we would have to crack open the whole carapace.
And he wouldn't survive that.
He certainly wouldn't go back to the wild like that.
NARRATOR: Instead Dr. Boylan uses
x-rays to help guide an injection of blood
into the air pocket.
The blood will hopefully create a clot that will
block the opening to the lung.
DR. SHANE BOYLAN: It's kind of tricky without going in
surgically to know where it is.
We put a needle in.
We take a radiograph.
And we'd see if it was placed properly.
And then we'd take another couple more radiographs.
We made sure where we were, and we injected his blood.
And that forms a seal.
So the next time he takes a breath in,
it doesn't push through that hole and fill that bulla again.
NARRATOR: Amazingly, it works.
The air pocket, or bulla, is practically gone.
And the lung no longer leaks air.
DR. SHANE BOYLAN: We did another CT scan.
And there is no air left on the bulla at all.
It's scar tissue.
You can actually see it.
But there's no trapped gas.
NARRATOR: Five months after his accident,
Glenn is finally able to breathe normally and dive once again.
Hey Glenn.
You're going home today.
Yeah, he's excited.
We're so happy to get him back out.
And we really thought he would be a non-releasable turtle.
NARRATOR: Glenn won't be making the trip back to the ocean
alone.
He's sharing his release day with Hunley,
a 150 pound female loggerhead who
was badly bitten by a shark.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
She suffered lacerations to her head and shell
while the shark made off with most of her front flipper.
Antibiotics and lots of rest have
helped Hunley recover enough to be cleared for release.
Hunley and Glenn are the biggest comeback patients
this year for the hospital.
They'll receive a proper farewell on the Isle of Palms
where a huge crowd is growing by the minute in anticipation
of their arrival.
We were coming this way.
And kept mentioning, turtles, turtles.
I want to see the turtles.
So she was pretty excited.
NARRATOR: Hunley, the loggerhead, goes first.
[CHEERS]
It's a team effort to get her to the shoreline.
[CHEERS]
Finally, it's the moment the hospital staff never expected.
Glenn is about to go home.
It's been five months of arduous rehab since his accident.
The pioneering blood patch surgery
that saved Glenn will help Dr. Boylan
treat new cases like this more swiftly in the future.
For now, the staff celebrate one more kemp's
ridley returning to the wild.