“She was just exhausted, so when she finally calmed down, she began sleeping,” Teresa recalled. They waited hours while a team tried to find them. Teresa took over and held the baby, who looked up at her, eyes wide and panicked, her heart beating rapidly. Once there, Jim was able to catch the frightened dolphin in his arms. Not having any luck with the terrified baby, they decided to guide her with their boats and slowly steer her to land. She slipped into the water to try to get hold of the dolphin so they could bring her back to shore. With Teresa onboard, they returned to the site. When he told them about the research assistant who needed a lift, they left Jim to keep an eye on the dolphin while they went back to pick her up. That was a problem, because he couldn’t leave the little dolphin.Īs luck would have it, a group of people out for a boat ride in the near vicinity spotted Jim and made their way over. A research assistant named Teresa Mazza told him she was on her way, but would need to be picked up onshore. Jim called the Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute, which responds to dolphin and whale emergencies. He spoke to her in a soft voice to calm her, telling her, “You’ll be okay.” Though he managed to free her enough to swim, she didn’t go far because a piece of rope was still embedded in her mouth and she couldn’t swim normally - the net had cut off the blood supply to her tail, which was turning white, and she had scars all over her body. “She must have spun and fought it but just kept getting more twisted,” Jim told the Orlando Sentinel. Jim immediately got out a knife and cut the rope in several places. Her struggle only managed to get her more and more trapped within the net. Although she wasn’t even old enough to be weaned, she’d been abandoned. A three-month-old baby dolphin was caught in a crab trap, struggling to get free. That’s when he witnessed a horrifying sight. He decided to check it out.Īs he approached, he heard gasps as if someone were drowning. What caught his attention was the fact that it was bobbing in direct opposition to the waves, which was unusual. He was on his way to his favorite trout fishing hole when he noticed a distant buoy bobbing against the wind in Mosquito Lagoon. It was a cold December morning in 2005 when Florida fisherman Jim Savage launched his flat skiff and wound up saving a baby’s life.
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