A large crowd erupted into cheers on Sombrero Beach to celebrate a turtle’s successful release back into the ocean following its rehabilitation.
The turtle, named Addie, is a juvenile green sea turtle who swallowed a fish hook and had been rehabilitating at the Florida Keys Turtle Hospital since August 2024.
“She had a fishing hook deeply embedded in her esophagus,” the hospital’s manager, Bette Zirkelbach, said. “She was covered in fibropapilloma tumors.”
Addie wasn’t expected to survive. After undergoing surgery, she couldn’t lift her head and spent a month on a shower bed undergoing physical therapy and being fed by a tube twice a day. She even gave her medical team a scare, needing to be resuscitated three different times during her stay.
Now on Earth Day, she was met with cheers from a huge crowd as she made her way back into the Atlantic Ocean for a fresh start.