A girl in Georgia is proving that animals are just like people.
Kendall Barfield, 12, recently met her adopted juvenile green sea turtle named Bandit, who currently resides at Georgia Sea Turtle Center on Jekyll Island.
The turtle has been in rehabilitation at the center since it was involved in a boat crash in 2021, which injured its backbone and left its rear fins paralyzed.
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Barfield and Bandit, it turns out, have a similar story — as a spina bifida diagnosis at birth left the tween paralyzed from the ankles down.
Fox News Digital spoke with Kendall Barfield and her mom, Danielle Barfield, of Columbus, Georgia, about the moment they met Bandit, a female turtle.
Danielle Barfield first heard Bandit’s story when she and her husband visited Jekyll Island – a barrier island off the coast of Georgia – on a business trip.
“I was just really touched by [the turtle’s] story,” she said. “I felt a connection.”
“It was very close to Christmas [of 2022]. And so I was like, ‘Kendall loves animals. She loves aquariums and sea animals. She would love an adoption, so to speak, of Bandit.’ And so we got Bandit for her for Christmas.”
But Kendall Barfield and Bandit were only pals from afar until the Barfields took the four-hour road trip to Jekyll Island on Jan. 5, 2024.
The seventh grader said she was “really surprised” by how large the sea turtle was in person, even though Bandit is most likely only in her teens.
“I just thought it was really cool being up close to a turtle because I’ve always loved marine life,” she said….
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