Allison, a sea turtle that was injured in a
shark attack in 2005, now lives at Sea
Turtle, Inc. on South Padre Island. A
faculty member at The University of
Texas Dental Branch at Houston plans
to make a prosthetic flipper to help
her swim.
Maxillofacial prosthetic technology and dental implants will give hope to a one-flippered Atlantic Green Sea Turtle named Allison, thanks to an alumni connection at The University of Texas Dental Branch at Houston.
“The goal is to design a silicone flipper for Allison, using a mold made from a frozen flipper from a similar turtle as the model,” says Sudarat Kiat-Amnuay, D.D.S., assistant professor at The University of Texas Dental Branch at Houston and The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. “We hope to test three different types of facial prosthetic silicones with varying weights and hardness to fabricate the prosthetic flipper; then pick the one that has the closest properties to the real flipper. Once the flipper is made, we would hope to use a dental implant to attach it to her femur, which is about 10 mm in diameter, to retain the prosthetic flipper.”
The turtle had been attacked by a small shark and stranded on the beach of South Padre Island, she was found June 16, 2005, by a young girl and her family. The turtle had exposed bone and a series of bite marks and was taken to Sea Turtle Inc., a sea turtle rescue center on the island. Her veterinarian care is now provided by Thomas DeMaar, D.V.M. of the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville, TX.
John Cozad, D.V.M., of the Port Isabel Animal Hospital; Grayson
Sellers, D.D.S., a Port Isabel dentist and 1974 graduate of The
University of Texas Dental Branch at Houston; and Sudarat
Kiat-Amnuay, assistant professor at the UT Dental Branch at
Houston, have teamed up to help Allison.
Named after the girl who found her, Allison healed from her wounds. The next step was to adapt to her disability by learning to swim with just one flipper. She now spends most of her days swimming in deeper water at Sea Turtle, Inc.
The rescue group contacted Grayson Sellers, D.D.S., a Port Isabel dentist and 1974 graduate of the UT Dental Branch at Houston, for advice.
“I knew dental materials were definitely a possibility, so I contacted the Dental Branch. I needed to contact someone who would take me seriously, since I was asking for help building a prosthetic flipper, so I contacted Dr. Stephen Schwartz,” says Sellers. Schwartz, a former vice president of the American Dental Association and also an alumnus, is chairman of the Open to Health Fund-raising Initiative for the UT Dental Branch at Houston. Schwartz and Catherine M. Flaitz, D.D.S., dean of the UT Dental Branch at Houston, arranged for Kiat-Amnuay’s involvement.
Along with Sellers and Kiat-Amnuay, John Cozad, D.V.M, of The Port Isabel Animal Hospital will conduct Allison’s surgeries at the Gladys Porter Zoo.
Kiat-Amnuay noted that since no one has ever attempted such a procedure, there may be some trial and error to fit Allison’s prosthetic flipper. Similar prosthetics have been tried on dolphins; however, they have larger bones and different swimming movements.
Together, over the next several months, Cozad, Sellers and DeMaar will take impressions of what is left of Allison’s bone area where the prosthetic flipper will go and here in Houston, Kiat-Amnuay will construct the new flipper.
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the green turtle is listed as endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
—Natalie Wong Camarata
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