As I heard a boat rumble by on the ocean surface, it reminded me of the near death experience I had had just a little over a year ago. I’m Dwayne the sea turtle.What happened was pretty chaotic, and I can't believe I survived.
My family and I went through a bad luck patch, roughly a year ago. At one point it as so bad everyone had to fend for themselves. So, one day I was out looking for food. I saw what I thought was some kelp (I later learned it was a plastic bottle, but since I was very young, I could not tell the difference),so I swam over and ate it. At the time I knew the taste was off, but I ate it anyway. Soon after I swallowed though, I knew something wasn’t right.
I live right off the coast of Hawaii, which is just about where the Great Pacific Garbage patch is located. My mom told me that the plastic bottle I ate had probably sunk down to the ocean floor (apparently it happens quite frequently), and that that is how my uncle Jerry had died.
I started choking, rapidly losing all the air in my lungs. I needed to get to the surface; fast. On my way up, I saw that I was right under the big mound of plastic trash, ranging from things the size of a refrigerator to tiny microscopic pieces. A boat rumbled by right as I reached the surface. I didn’t know if that was a positive thing or a negative thing. I was starting to become light headed, slowly sinking back to the ocean floor when all of a sudden a net scooped me up and pulled me on deck. They were all yelling and making my head hurt, so I closed my eyes, but that just made them louder, so I kept my eyes open.
They stuck a weird tool down my throat and grabbed the bottle. When they pulled it out, I coughed a little, but I instantly felt better. They were all really happy too; I could tell because they were all jumping up and down, and dancing. They put me back in the net, and lowered me to the surface of the water.
I swam back down to my family, and they were all so happy I had survived. It turns out that my mom was right by my side the whole time, and that the only reason I made it up in time was that she had pushed me up to the top.
I learned my lesson to be cautious about what I eat before I eat it, and to warn others where I see plastic so that they do not eat it because when it ends up in oceans, it causes so much more trouble for wildlife than people know.
:)