Shell-shocked! Tortoise Pee-wee rescued after accidentally falling through glass crusher at recycling site

By Chris Pollard 22:30 19 Oct 2024, updated 22:30 19 Oct 2024

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Not even the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles endured a death-defying adventure like this...

A tortoise called Pee-wee made a miraculous escape when he got caught up in the rubbish at a recycling centre, where he was scooped up by a digger, dumped through a hopper and passed through a glass crusher.

Yet he emerged from the machinery bloodied but alive, then was plucked from a conveyor belt where trash is sorted by hand.

Forklift truck driver Paul Frost, 41, whose colleague found the tortoise, said: 'I didn't think he was going to survive because he was bleeding from cuts and scratches and was missing a bit of his shell.

'I took him home and my wife bathed him in some warm water.

'It looked like he was smiling when she scrubbed his shell with a toothbrush, it was quite cute.

'We gave him some cucumber and he seemed to liven up, and we knew he would be OK.'

Paul's wife Louise, 38, said: 'He's surprisingly quick for a tortoise, but I've no idea how he managed to dodge all those dangers.

'It's remarkable that he hasn't got more injuries. We think somebody may have accidentally thrown him away if he was hibernating, or maybe they decided they couldn't look after him any more and just discarded him, which is really sad.'

Paul – who was nicknamed Dr Dolittle by colleagues after he rescued three kittens from the recycling plant last year – said Pee-wee could have been sitting in a mound of rubbish for up to two months before arriving at the Mid-UK Recycling Centre in Grantham, Lincolnshire, in a 22-ton consignment of waste.

How he managed to survive remains a mystery and if he hadn't been spotted, Pee-wee, a Hermann's tortoise, would have ended up in an incinerator.

Vet Sara Marchant, 55, manager of Kirks Vets in nearby Sleaford, is currently looking after Pee-wee.

She said: 'He seems to be in good health. He is microchipped, but the chip isn't registered, so we are unable to track the owner.

'The recycling centre takes rubbish from all around the country, so we don't know where he came from. He's a very, very lucky tortoise and a little sweetie.'

Pee-wee will be looked after at the vet's for a while in case his owner comes forward, otherwise Paul and Louise will take him on.

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