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Going Home….A loggerhead turtle returns to the sea By JORDAN TOMBERLIN   Her journey began on June 3, when a pair of National Park Service employees, Eric Frey and Adriana Weil, discovered her stranded and lifeless near the Frisco Pier. “We thought she was dead,” said Frey, “but when we moved closer, we could see her eyes were moving.” Believing she might be a female stranded while trying to nest, they put her in the water to see if she could swim. She could not. Her head dipped down into the water, while the lower half of her body floated awkwardly. Realizing she wasn’t going to make it in the water, Frey and Weil went in, got her out, and took her to Roanoke Island Animal Clinic. At the clinic, Dr. Mary Burkart examined the turtle, or “floaty-butt,” as Frey and Weil affectionately called her. An X-ray showed that Eriana had a punctured lung, which allowed air to escape into her body cavity. The air in her body had caused her to float improperly, and because she couldn’t lift her head out of the water for air, fluid seeped into her lungs. As a result of that fluid, she had also developed pneumonia. As if all that wasn’t bad enough, the X-ray showed another problem. Eriana had swallowed a hook, and it was lodged in her stomach. The hook’s location meant that any surgery to remove it would have been extremely difficult and invasive, so because it was causing her no real harm, the doctors decided to leave it there, knowing that eventually it would rust and disintegrate. The cause of Eriana’s punctured lung remains unknown, but doctors knew it was the kind of injury that could heal itself, given enough time and care. Luckily for Eriana, the Network for Endangered Sea Turtles (NEST) was there to help.  A non-profit organization dedicated to the protection and preservation of Sea Turtles and other marine life of the Outer Banks, NEST, in conjunction with the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island, maintains a sea turtle rehabilitation facility at the aquarium in Manteo. NEST funded all of Eriana’s treatment and rehabilitation.  Treatment began with antibiotics to clear her pneumonia and steroids to help her lung heal. To remove the air from her body cavity, aquarium employee Christian Guerreri, who oversaw Eriana’s rehabilitation, had to aspirate the turtle several times over the course of her rehabilitation. Aspirating the turtle required Guerreri to stick a large needle under her shell and manually remove the trapped air. The procedure was done about four times, and each time, Guerreri removed approximately one liter of air. After her initial visits to the vet, Eriana spent the rest of her journey in the aquarium’s rehab center, where a dedicated staff nursed her back to health. When her lung had healed and new tissue had formed around the hook, Eriana’s long wait was over. She was ready to go home. Four and a half months later, she was poised at the edge of the shore, ready to say goodbye to a place that, hopefully, she wouldn’t see again for a long time. A few moments later, Eriana swam away. 
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