This 92-Year-Old Tortoise Got a Set of Wheels and Is Now Speeding Around
Note: Title might need tweaking. Tortoise was 90 in 2015, unclear if it remains alive to this day.
Mrs T might not look like a speedster, but her story has more twists than anyone would expect from a reptile known for taking it slow. Back in 2015, this much loved tortoise was about 90 years old and living a quiet life in Pembroke in West Wales. Her owner, Jude Ryder, thought she was settled in for a peaceful hibernation in a garden shed. Instead, a hungry rat showed up and changed everything.
The rat chewed through her two front legs, leaving Jude facing a heartbreaking situation. Vets were able to save her life, but the question nobody could ignore was how a tortoise without front legs was going to move around. That is where a bit of creativity rolled in, quite literally.
How A Rat Attack Changed Everything
Jude discovered the injury when she went to check on Mrs T in the shed. The sight was rough and the vet bill climbed to about £1,000. Even with treatment, it was clear that life would be tough for a tortoise who relied on four limbs to scoot across the lawn. Jude was worried she might have to make an impossible choice.
What she needed was a way to keep Mrs T mobile, safe, and happy. Luckily, Jude happened to have someone in the family who looked at problems with a different eye. Her son Dale, a mechanical engineer who had received Mrs T as a childhood pet when he was only eight, stepped in to help. By then he was 37 and had the skills to try something nobody in the family had imagined.
A Clever Fix That Changed Her Pace
Dale got to work and came up with a simple idea that worked better than anyone expected. He used wheels from a model aircraft, created an axle, and attached the setup to the front of Mrs T’s shell with resin and glue. The moment she tried it, the change was obvious. She used her back legs to push and the wheels carried the front of her body forward.
Suddenly, the tortoise who once moved slowly was cruising at double speed. Jude joked that it felt like giving her a turbocharger. She even pointed out that Mrs T could live another 50 years, joking that all she would need along the way was a fresh set of tires now and then. Mrs T had to learn how to turn and stop, but she adjusted quickly and seemed proud of her new wheels.
Rolling Into A New Kind Of Life
Image via Canva/Aflo Images
News outlets from the BBC to The Telegraph picked up the story, and people everywhere fell for the spirited tortoise who refused to give up. Even Yahoo covered it and compared her upgraded mobility to hares needing to watch out. The story went viral, partly because it was charming and partly because it showed what a little resourcefulness can do.
Around the same time, another tortoise named Blade got LEGO wheels from a German vet, which made the idea of rolling reptiles feel like a growing trend. For Jude though, it was personal. She had thought she might lose her longtime pet, and instead she got to see her zipping around the garden again.
Today it is unclear if Mrs T is still alive, but in 2015 she was moving better than she had in years. The headline here calls her 92 because that is how old she would be now, and it is fun to imagine she might still be cruising. Whether she is rolling across a lawn or resting someplace comfortable, the story remains a reminder that even the slowest animals can surprise us.