At loggerheads with a stuck sea turtle

As have her ancestors for millions of years, the 300-pound loggerhead sea turtle crawled up onto the white-sand beach of the Florida Panhandle, in the dark of night, to dig a pit and deposit her dozens of eggs.

But something went wrong — as something often does in the era of tourist-clogged beaches. Before she could excavate her own hole, the huge creature found another, a pit left by people, and plunged head-first into the sand. By the time Atlanta expatriate Johndra Culp found her just after dawn, the turtle was immobile, stern sticking up, head buried by a foot and a half. Surely the animal was dead, Culp figured.