Every year about this time, some sea turtles in the Northeast wash up on beaches or are found bobbing in the surf.

They may look lifeless, but in reality they are cold stunned— a condition in which their body temperature dips too low for them to do practically anything, including eating or swimming.

A healthy sea turtle's heart beats 30 to 40 times per minute but a severely stunned turtle's heart may pump just once in an hour.

This happened to "Eco Ed," a young green sea turtle who was rescued by the Marine Mammal Stranding Center on the bayside of Long Beach Island on Nov. 17.

SKY BLUE: Gov. Phil Murphy's soccer team drops support for Jackson stadium

COLTS NECK MURDERS: Caneiro family funeral, memorial service for fire victims coming today

He or she — the gender of sea turtles isn't readily apparent until they're adults — washed ashore with a body temperature of 53 degrees, or about 7 degrees below the threshold when sickness often takes hold, said Bill Deerr, co-executive officer of Sea Turtle Recovery, a nonprofit that is taking care of Eco Ed at their facility in Essex County. Watch the group release endangered turtles and a huge Loggerhead in Point Pleasant last summer in the video at the top of the page.

The 15-pound sea turtle was put on antibiotics for a lung infection and has recently started eating again.

“We’re hoping for a speedy recovery, but it’ll be a least a few months,” Deerr said.

Soon, Eco Ed will have plenty of company. Sea Turtle Recovery is expecting a caravan of sick turtles inbound to their corner of Turtle Back Zoo early this week.

These turtles are coming from Cape Cod in Massachusetts. Hundreds of sea turtles have beached there since Thanksgiving, essentially paralyzed by the drop in water temperature that accompanied an especially cool end to November.

"They’re reptiles. They're cold-blooded and their body assumes the temperature around them," said Bob Schoelkopf, founder and director of the MMSC in Brigantine. "Land turtles can hibernate when it gets too cold. They just go underground. Sea turtles can’t do that."

Cape Cod and other bays, including Sandy Hook, are common locations for this to happen. Turtles will swim into the warmer, relatively shallow waters of the bay as fall begins only to realize too late that there is no path for them to move farther south when water temperatures in the bay start to plummet.

“Most of the ones being cold-stunned are Kemp's Ridleys," Deerr said. "(That species is) listed as critically endangered, which means they could be extinct within a few generations.”

SEA TURTLE RECOVERY: Tammie, a 235-pound loggerhead sea turtle, swims again

What to do if you find a cold-stunned turtle

1. Call Sea Turtle Recovery (609-667-4076) or the Marine Mammal Stranding Center (609-266-0538). Alternatively, you can call the local police or the U.S. Coast Guard. Alert one of these rescue groups even if you think the turtle is dead. It might very well be deceased, but let the experts decide.

2. If you feel comfortable doing so, you can move the turtle out of the surf so that it doesn't float off but otherwise don't mess with it. These are wild animals and they might try to bite you in defense.

3. Unless you're trained in what to do, don't try to administer any medical care to the turtle.

“You don’t want to wrap them in a towel, you don’t want to put them in a warm car," Deerr said. "You think you’re helping, but you’re not.”

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: Boss to release solo album, tour with E Street Band in 2019, report says

Russ Zimmer: 732-557-5748, razimmer@app.com, @russzimmer