The turtles didn’t know it, but their lives were in the hands of the sandal-wearing vet who has worked for 42 years on animals’ eyes — including those of Lolita the killer whale and thoroughbred Seattle Slew before he won the Triple Crown.

Bette Zirkelbach, manager of the nonprofit Turtle Hospital in the Middle Keys' island town of Marathon, had contacted Karpinski a few months earlier “in desperation” to find a new treatment to help Hook and Jack avoid euthanization. As in the case of many turtles with the same condition, their eye tumors grew back about six weeks after being removed, a process that kept repeating itself.

"We can’t release turtles back into the wild if they don’t have vision in at least one eye," Zirkelbach said.

Karpinski came up with the idea of trying Fluorouracil, an anti-cancer medication used in humans. Karpinski already had found success using it on horses with skin cancer and on a Malayan tapir at Zoo Miami with eye tumors. Maybe, she thought, it would work on the endangered sea creatures.

"Dr. Karpinski got creative," Zirkelbach said. "And honestly, the turtles had nothing to lose."