Healthy Turtle Goes Commercial for Return Flight Home

WASHINGTON -- An injured sea turtle is heading home to virgin Island after being nursed back to health in Florida. Sandy is a hawksbill sea turtle.

She was attacked by wild dogs while she was on the beach in the Virgin Islands.

Sandy was flown from Saint Croix to the turtle hospital in the Florida Keys last November.

A hospital veterinarian amputated the reptile's front right flipper and removed a small section of its front left flipper.

The turtle spent the next months learning to swim and feed herself again.

The hospital director says the health of "every" animal matters.

"When turtles are endangered as sandy is, each turtle becomes significant, inasmuch as the eggs she's carrying - there's thousands of eggs. And when an animal becomes endangered we look at this animal as it might make the difference whether future generations get to see hawksbills like sandy," said hospital director Richie Moretti.

Sandy is getting a free flight home to St. Croix to Miami on an American Airlines jet.