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On Wednesday morning, a motorist near Port Orange, FL called 911 to report that an object had flown through her windshield and struck her elderly mother on the head.
Upon inspection, the motorist realized that the object was no rock or branch, but rather a live turtle. Miraculously, the animal had sustained only minor injuries. It was released into the woods by firefighters.
"It's crazy," a dispatch supervisor told The Daytona Beach News-Journal of the bizarre incident.
The motorist's mother suffered a cut above one of her eyes and was taken to the Halifax Health Medical Center for treatment, Port Orange police department spokesman Officer Andre Fleming said, according to the News-Journal.
"I swear to God this lady has the worst luck of anything," the motorist said of her mother. Neither of their names was made public.
In a recording of the 911 call, the motorist tells a dispatcher that she was driving toward Daytona Beach on Interstate 95 when "something" hit her windshield, breaking the glass and dealing her mother, who was sitting in the passenger seat, a hard blow.
While she says that she didn't see the mysterious missile "til it was flying through the air," she tentatively identifies it as a "piece of paper, like a paper plate." When the dispatcher asks her to confirm, the woman asks a man who had pulled over to help if he sees anything in the front seat.
"There's a turtle in there," he says.
"A turtle? An actual turtle?" she repeats in disbelief.
Indeed, an actual turtle. The reptile had suffered scratches to its shell but was otherwise intact, Fleming said. It may have been knocked into the air by another car as it was attempting to cross the road. Fleming did not provide any further information about the reptile.
The dispatcher instructed the motorist to use a "clean, dry cloth" to apply pressure to her mother's wound, which the motorist said was bleeding profusely, until the ambulance arrived at the scene. The mother did not lose consciousness and is expected to make a full recovery.
Five years ago, a nearby stretch of highway was the scene of a similar car accident. In 2016, 38-year-old Nicole Marie Bjanes was driving west on Interstate 4 when a red-eared slider flew through the windshield of her Volkswagon Jetta, inflicting a cut on her forehead. Luckily, Bjanes was not seriously injured and even said that she wanted to keep the turtle, according to the News-Journal.
