Good luck coins prove fatal
A SEA turtle nicknamed Piggy Bank has died after complications from surgery to remove nearly 1 000 coins she swallowed during captivity.
The reptile was thought to be recovering well from the pioneering sevenhour operation earlier this month to remove 5kg of coins lodged in her digestive tract – good luck pennies tossed into the pool she was kept in.
She had eaten the coins, believing that they were food.
But she took a sudden turn for the worse at the weekend, developing blood poisoning from serious intestinal problems after the coins were removed. Omsin (Piggy Bank) was 25. Her plight, recorded in precise detail in daily news updates, captured the hearts of many Thais and raised questions over the collision of traditional beliefs in good luck and animal welfare in the country.
“At 10.10am she went with peace,” a tearful Nantarika Chansue, the vet in charge of Chulalongkorn hospital’s aquatic research centre, said yesterday.
“She was my friend, teacher and patient.”
The turtle lived for two decades in a small pond in a public park in Chonburi province.
Visitors tossed coins into her pond seeking good luck.
Vets hope the media coverage of the stricken creature will make Thais think twice about throwing coins into ponds where animals live.