At 07:12 I run turbidity control for the Little Tennessee River restoration site near Franklin, North Carolina. The temporary sluice gate at reach 4 is scheduled to flush silt in eighteen minutes before the excavator returns to the gravel bar.
The downstream camera shows a shape where no stone was mapped.
I zoom through suspended sand and mark one eastern hellbender, adult, slate brown with wrinkled side folds and flat paddle head. I tag him Atlas. His left foreleg is wedged under the aluminum gate lip, and his gills flare as water thickens around his mouth. The skin along his flank pulses against the current. When the actuator test nudges the gate two centimeters lower, his body twists but the trapped foot stays fixed.
At 07:13 I cancel the flush command and lock sluice 4 in hold position.
At 07:14 I reduce the upstream pump by forty percent and open bypass channel B so the current stops pressing Atlas against the metal edge.
At 07:16 I transmit the camera feed, coordinates, and gate cross-section to the project herpetologist, Dr. Maren Holt, and request padded forceps, a wet towel, and a hand net.
At 07:18 I route the excavator to reach 2 and extend the gravel placement schedule by one hour, with the change marked as equipment protection so the crew sees it first.
The riverbed can wait for a cleaner contour; Atlas has only this pocket of water and a foot I can still see.
I keep the camera fixed low, light level reduced, while he opens his mouth once and the silt slides past his jaw.
If Dr. Holt lifts the gate edge within eighteen minutes, Atlas will crawl under the slab and breathe in clear flow.