Urgent Care :: RES broken shell

[bobthegoblin]

Hello all...

I found a large adult red-eared slider yesterday which had been walking for some distance, and was moving pretty fast for a turtle. I was shocked to find its shell had been badly cracked in two places (in top right hand side of shell looking from above, around 2 inches long, and close to its tail, around an inch long). It had clearly been bleeding quite a lot, but the blood appeared to have coagulated and was beginning to dry (so there was no new blood appearing). Despite its injury, it appeared alert and moving well.

I immediately contacted the local animal rescue centre, who collected the RES and took it to a vet. I had expected to hear back from the rescue centre that the turtle was being cared for, patched up, etc., but received a call after a short while saying that it had been euthanised because "it was suffering".

I've been reading over the last 24 hours that a badly cracked shell can in some cases heal with specialist care. I am now feeling terrible for having handed the turtle over at all, and wonder whether I could have found a specialist vet that could have helped it properly. This being Asia, the vet attending to the turtle had only limited experience of working with turtles (mainly sees dogs and cats). I am waiting to hear in full why the decision to euthanise was taken, but I feel this could have been a hasty decision made through lack of knowledge, money or resources.

Can anyone help me please to understand better how easy it is to care for turtle in this condition, and how likely it might have made a recovery. And if it was alert and very mobile, does this suggest that it was not suffering too badly

Many thanks and best wishes to all.

[Love of Animals]

This type of treatment might have been done if it was somebodies pet. Would be quite time consuming and expensive. Turtles are very prone to infections with open shells. There really is no way of knowing whether the turtle would have made it. You did the right thing by not walking away. It's hard to think you did a good deed then something like that happens. The turtle would have had zero chance in the wild have would have been somethings meal. She died in a much more peaceful way this way. You did a good thing.

[steve]

Sorry to hear it. Love of Animals is correct... it is time consuming and expensive. Only very experienced rehabbers should deal with these situations. Antibiotics are needed and smaller injuries require restraint while larger ones might need epoxy resin and fiberglass patches.