Patricio G. Balona
The Daytona Beach News-Journal
PORT ORANGE, Fla. — A turtle crashed through the windshield of a vehicle on Interstate 95 near Port Orange on Wednesday morning, hitting a woman in the head and sending her to the hospital, authorities said.
“It’s crazy,” a dispatch supervisor said, confirming the incident reported at 10:48 a.m.
Equally shocked was the woman’s daughter, who asked another motorist who stopped to help if he could see what was in her front seat.
“There is a turtle in there,” a man can be heard saying on a 9-1-1 recording.
“A turtle!” the victim’s daughter exclaimed. “An actual turtle?”
The last time a turtle was reported crashing into a windshield in Volusia County was near Deltona in 2016 on Interstate 4, according to Florida Highway Patrol Lt. Kim Montes.
The woman and her mother had just left Port Orange and were headed to Daytona Beach on northbound I-95 and said she didn‘t see the object until it was flying through the air and crashed through her windshield.
“We are on Interstate 95. Something just came through the windshield and hit my mom in the head,” the woman told a 9-1-1 dispatcher. “She’s got so much blood coming out of her head.”
Dispatchers helped the daughter by telling her to apply towels and pressure to her mother’s head wound to stop the bleeding until an ambulance arrived to transport her to the hospital.
Paramedics transporting the woman to the hospital said the woman did not lose conscious and repeated that she was injured by a turtle that crashed through her car’s windshield.
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