This Turtle Swallowed 915 Coins, Forming An 11-Pound Ball Of Metal In Her Stomach

They don’t call her Bank for nothing.

This is Bank, a 25-year-old endangered green sea turtle who for years lived a quiet agony in her pool in Thailand, consuming hundreds of coins tossed at her by those seeking good fortune.

Many Thais believe that throwing coins on turtles will bring longevity. However, for Bank, the coins in her pool in the eastern town of Sri Racha only brought misery.

The coins had accumulated in Bank’s stomach, forming a ball that weighed 11 pounds. The weight eventually cracked the turtle’s ventral shell, causing a life-threatening infection.

Members of the Thai navy brought Bank to the clinic in February after finding her in distress in her pond, the Associated Press reported.

On Monday, five veterinarians from Chulalongkorn University made an incision and, over the course of four hours, removed 915 coins from Bank’s stomach.

“I felt angry that humans, whether or not they meant to do it, or if they did it without thinking, had caused harm to this turtle,” Nantarika Chansue, head of the university’s veterinary medical aquatic animal research center, told the AP.

In addition to the partially corroded coins, two fish hooks were also removed by the surgeons. Bank will now be put on a liquid diet for the next two weeks and monitored.

“The result is satisfactory,” said Pasakorn Briksawan, a member of the surgical team. “Now it’s up to Bank how much she can recover.”
Days after the surgery, Bank appeared to be on the mend toward a full recovery.Watch Bank’s story here:

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