My husband and I got a call from his friend today that they found a baby eastern box turtle (same species as Turtle) with a broken shell, so we spent the day driving to go pick it up and see what we could do. The little guy still has a lot of growing to do, so if we get past the infection, mending the shell is going to be a long ordeal...

The wound had maggots in it, and was filled with dirt. He also has an eye infection (which should be easy to deal with. I still have antibiotics from when Turtle had her eye infection, and his isn't that bad yet). So, we started out by rinsing the shell wound with diluted hydrogen peroxide. I know it can be intense, but it was necessary for this case. Afterward, we flushed it alternately with water and diluted hibiclens several times to get as much grit as possible out. Lastly, I wicked out as much moisture as I could, and treated it with neosporin. It's loosely covered in surgical gauze (with the gentle surgical tape attaching it to his shell) to keep debris from falling in it.
He's beside my python's tank right now, to keep his temps in the mid 80's, and has plain newspaper substrate with no water. He'll be soaked twice a day, but every medical text I could find said not to give turtles with shell injuries free access to water.

I sent an e-mail to the reptile rescue that I adopted my White's tree frog from to see if there were any options there for him. They've had several intense, long-term medical cases that are posted on their website. I offered to foster him and do all the basic care, but this guy will almost certainly need a vet to pop that shell into place, and we can't afford that for a wild rescue. The vets around that do take rescue wildlife will only keep them if someone acts as a financial sponsor, so the rescue is the best chance for that.

He's alert and eating; killed a small worm earlier. A little weak, but no paralysis. He's also very curious and investigates anything new you put in front of him. A full recovery is a long-shot at this point, but you can tell he's still got a lot of fight in him.

Here he is... Well, seems more like a she, but still. We're calling her Derpy.
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