A 25-year-old sea turtle in Thailand, who was operated upon earlier this month to remove 915 coins she had swallowed at a tourist site, died on Tuesday from intestinal problems, reported the Bangkok Post. “She passed away this morning at 10.10 am,” veterinarian Nantarika Chansue, who led the team of doctors that carried out the surgery, said in a Facebook post.
“She [Om Sin] developed intestinal volvulus and strangulation on Saturday,” Chansue said. Veterinarians said Om Sin, which means “piggy bank”, had 200 times more nickel than normal in her blood, which resulted in low immunity and heart-related problems, the Bangkok Post added.
Chansue said Om Sin’s death should become an example for people to not throw coins into ponds where animals live. “It only hurts the animals,” she said.
On March 6, Om Sin underwent her first surgery when the coins weighing five kilograms were taken out from her stomach. During a check up on Saturday, it was revealed that she was having a stomach ache owing to complications from the surgery. The turtle received another surgery, but when she didn’t wake up, the doctors believed she had slipped into a coma.
The animal had swallowed the coins thrown in a pond by tourists when she was in Koh Loy in Sri Racha district near Bangkok. The weight formed by the coins cracked her shell.
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