What once seemed a horrific and hopeless situation has now turned into a triumphant success for a 90-year-old tortoise and her owner.
Meet Mrs. T, a turtle from Pembroke, West Wales, UK, who can now outpace all other tortoises in the area thanks to a brand new pair of wheels.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TDlBT5iokE]
When a rat unsuspectingly climbed into Mrs. T’s cage while she was hibernating and chewed off her front feet, the reptile’s owner, 56-year-old Jude Ryder, wasn’t sure what could be done.
It was after finding Mrs. T in such a horrific condition during a routine check up that Jude rushed her to the vet. There she learned from the doctors that Mrs. T’s front legs would need to be amputated if her life was to be saved.
Fearing that the elder tortoise would not survive the trauma of losing her mobility, Ryder asked her son, Dale, for help.
Dale, a 37-year-old mechanical engineer who was actually the original caretaker of Mrs. T, came up with an ingenious solution to provide mobility once again to the tortoise.
He affixed a set of wheels from a model aircraft to her shell using resin, and now Mrs. T is not only back in action, she’s twice as fast as she was before!
“It was like fitting her with a turbo charger – she’s going double the speed she used to,” said owner Jude Ryder. “She uses her back legs to push herself along. She seems quite happy, but it’s difficult to tell with a tortoise.”
According to The Telegraph, Mrs. T could easily live another 50 years – as long as her human changes her tires now and again.
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