Citron was not supposed to be swimming sideways. When rescuers found the female manatee in Florida’s Kings Bay in January, the unusual position was a sign that something was seriously wrong.
Veterinarians discovered that Citron had a pneumothorax, a condition in which air becomes trapped inside the chest because of damage to a lung. For a manatee, the injury can interfere with buoyancy, making it difficult to swim, remain submerged, or move normally through the water.
Citron was transported to SeaWorld Orlando, where veterinarians and animal-care specialists began what would become seven months of treatment and rehabilitation.
This was not her first rescue. Citron had also needed help in 2025, although that recovery was brief and she was quickly returned to the water. This time, the damage was more serious. Her caregivers performed multiple procedures, including surgery, and monitored her as she slowly regained her health.
Eventually, Citron was eating normally again. Her medical problems had cleared, and, most importantly for an animal built to move gently through the water, her buoyancy had returned.
On August 27, the rescue team transported her to the Port Hotel and Marina in Crystal River. There, after months surrounded by examination rooms, medical equipment, and the people working to save her, Citron was released into her natural habitat.
Wildlife rehabilitation does not always end happily. Some injuries cannot be repaired, and some animals cannot safely return to the wild. That makes a release like Citron’s more than a pleasant animal story. It is the result of months of patience, specialized knowledge, and people continuing to care for an animal that could offer them nothing in return.
For seven months, a team of people helped Citron right herself. Now she is back in the waters where she belongs, swimming under her own power and, finally, in the right direction.
A Note After Our First Week
Last Friday, Coffman’s Landing was a town waiting for us to arrive.
This week, we managed to lose a letter off the sign and give practically everyone something to say about it.
Five Minutes in America made its radio debut Monday. Our first week took us from “The Fence” to a boy’s mistake, a father’s workshop and a town that found it considerably easier to supply an explanation than to wait for one.
While writing these stories, I kept coming back to how much of community life depends on what we do after something goes wrong. Somebody has to carry the heavy end. Somebody has to admit what happened. And sometimes the rest of us have to stop talking long enough to hear them.
Those are familiar responsibilities, wherever you live.
This week, Heidi Crnkovic at AGDAILY also published a thoughtful conversation about the series. We talked about Eldon, the Lake of the Ozarks and the people who helped give Coffman’s Landing its character.
It meant a great deal to have someone ask about those roots. I made up the town, but I carry the places it came from with me. Writing these stories has given me a reason to spend some time there again.
Thank you to Heidi and the AGDAILY team. And thank you to everyone who spent five minutes with these stories this week.
If you haven’t visited yet, “The Fence” is a good place to begin.
We’ve only been here a week. There are still plenty of people to meet.
Stay free,
Tony Michaels
P.S. You don’t have to wait until Monday to see what happens next. Paid members get all five of next week’s stories tomorrow. Become a member and spend a little of your weekend in Coffman’s Landing.
Sources: WFTV, CBS12, and Good Good Good.
I'm very impressed that you have educated yourselves about pneumothoraxes. They're usually not hard to resolve, and Citron's first one was not hard to resolve. The question, which presumably took longer, was why she gets recurring ones. I hope that, too, has been resolved.
Up the east coast of Florida is inland, and then a strip of land further east. Between the two is the inland waterway. That's where I see manatees. They also live in rivers, and maybe in lakes. Where I live, in Miami, we don't have those rivers and lakes.
Thanks again for the (so far) good story of Citron. She has our best wishes.