On July 31st, a 5:30 a.m. call from the Folly Beach Public Safety Dispatcher to the Turtle Crew reported: "a turtle stuck under an Isuzu" near 1678 E. Ashley. In retrospect, the loggerhead may not have been "stuck," but she was certainly in trouble. She had been out of the water for hours and the sun was rising.

After discussing options, Van contacted Jim and together they were able to pull the 350+ pound loggerhead from under the Rodeo. She responded with a powerful surge of energy and began to crawl along East Ashley.

They were able to load her in a pickup and take her to the nearest beach access.

There they encountered heavy vegetation, sand fencing, and a 5-foot dune. With Jim on one side and Van the other, the sea turtle was lifted over the worst of the obstacles. When lifted, she responded with lunges and flipper flapping, scratching the officers' legs. But they held on and placed her gently on the open beach where she crawled, then rested, then crawled again toward the ocean.

Paula and Carole filled a bucket with seawater and slowly poured it over the loggerhead's neck and shell. She really seemed to appreciate that! With low-tide making the ocean look very far away, Van and Jim lifted the turtle one more time and walked her within 20 feet of the surf. Her mid-air flapping stopped when she saw the ocean coming closer -- she seemed to know that she would soon be safely home. She crawled to the edge of the ocean and let the waves wash her again and again, then continued on her way in until the crawl became a swim into the deeper water. And, our heroes -- Van, Jim, and David -- went back to "business as usual." The Crew found where the turtle had first come ashore and followed her tracks to her nest site. After she had laid her eggs, the turtle had travelled parallel with the ocean toward a large blue sun screen (tarp) that had collapsed and was lying at an angle on the sand. It may be that she mistook the shiny blue tarp for bright water. After reaching the tarp, she turned toward another blue object -- a catamaran beached high on a dune. This proved to be a near-fatal mistake. The path toward the catamaran was straight toward land. The turtle continued past the catamaran, over the dune, and into the backyard of the nearest house. Her flipper marks went across the width of the yard, through heavy, partially broken-off vegetation, and stopped at a low wooden fence that separates this yard from the next. The turtle's crawl then went the full length of that fence and on to the street. A black Isuzu Rodeo was parked across the street. You know the rest of the story.