Ready to dive into Dolphin Tale

I can’t tell you how excited we are about the new Dolphin Tale movie. Our obsession started when Hanger Prosthetics gave Jordan a stuffed animal that looks like Winter the Dolphin who is the star of the movie. The company also gave Jordan a book with Winter’s story… how as a baby, she was swimming in the ocean and got trapped in fishing line when a fisherman found her. He saved her life by calling the Clearwater Marine Aquarium. The organization was able to help nurse Winter back to health, even though her tail fell off. Amazingly, she learned how to swim again – but in an unusual side to side way instead of the natural up and down style. The aquarium knew Winter would have long term damage if they didn’t find ways to help her swim naturally. That’s how a number of experts, including Hanger’s Kevin Carroll, came up with a prosthetic tail for Winter. She wears her prosthetic tail a bit every day to keep her spine and muscles healthy.
Winter’s survival and endurance is awesome and it’s caught the attention of the special needs community. We’re very excited about the movie. It comes out on September 23rd and I think it’s incredibly important we make sure any and every person who is connected to the special needs world goes to their movie theater and watches the movie during the first weekend. There are some other big movies out that weekend, but none of the others have Morgan Freeman, Ashley Judd, Harry Connick Jr. and Kris Kristofferson. Have you seen the trailer? It’s awesome:

I’m excited to have a chance to view a preview of the movie next month – the weekend before it comes out. I plan to bring Jordan and let her give everyone her review as well! If you want to keep up with the movie leading up to opening day, check out the Dolphin Tale Facebook page.
Here are some other really cool links:
Clearwater Marine Aquarium
Hanger Prosthetics page about Dolphin Tale
Bay News 9’s page about Winter
St. Petersburg Times page about Winter