Rescue workers turn trapped dolphins into survival story

Rescue workers were frantically trying to save two dolphins trapped in a small lagoon created when tsunami waves swept them ashore eight days earlier.

Rescue workers were frantically trying Monday to save two dolphins trapped in a small lagoon created when tsunami waves swept them ashore eight days earlier.

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The animals, believed to be a female Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin and her roughly 3-year-old offspring, were spotted by a local man searching for his missing wife more than a kilometer (about a mile) from the coast. The larger one, about two meters (seven feet) long, appeared to have been injured on her back.

"I reckon ... they came in with the initial wave, and when the water retreated, they couldn't get back again, probably because it's pretty deep in here," said Edwin Wiek, a Dutchman who is director of the Wildlife Friends of Thailand Rescue Center. With no fish to feed on, "They might survive for a few days but not longer. We need to get them out."

With the search for survivors on Thailand's devastated southwestern coast basically turning into recovery of bodies, the discovery of the two dolphins energized workers.

"That's why we hope we get them out. That would be the only survivor story. We need one," Wiek said.