Treasure hunter Sue Hendrickson secretly visits the T-Rex fossil she discovered

Sneed on Sunday….

Sue?

Who knew?

It had been a long time since marine archaeologists Sue Hendrickson saw her beloved namesake from the Chicago Field Museum, “Sue the T-Rex,” the world’s most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex fossil, which she discovered in 1990.

“I’ve wanted to visit ‘Sue’ so many times, and I miss her,” said Hendrickson, who describes himself as an introvert and hadn’t seen “Sue” in 14 years, when we spoke recently.

“But you know, things happen and I hate all the publicity.”

Then Sue Hendrickson suddenly appeared at the Field Museum on Wednesday.

Secretly, unannounced and wearing a COVID mask for her anonymity, Hendrickson arrived at the museum alone and quietly made her way to her namesake’s new dinosaur dig site on the museum’s second floor.

In an exclusive interview following her surprise visit to “Sue,” Hendrickson spoke about her personal relationship with the world-famous fossil, which was found about 90% intact.

“I really just wanted to thank ‘Sue’ for rescuing her from a 66 million year old sleep before she wasted away forever,” she told Sneed.

“And I wanted to see ‘Sue’ alone and… um, talk to her skull, which is what I did when we found her years ago with her head trapped tightly under her pelvis,” she said.

“I’m glad I wore the mask even though I had COVID three times because when I saw it I actually cried,” she added.

A hunch that made history

Hendrickson was a digger, diver and sunken treasure hunter who discovered the legendary dinosaur by accident. She was hiking with her golden retriever, Gypsy, and had a “hunch” that “something might be in an exposed cliff,” which she discovered on a sweltering, foggy day in South Dakota.

The discovery became an international sensation.

“I still can’t believe it,” Hendrickson said. “I was pretty exhausted after sleeping outside for two months that day while digging for dinosaur bones … and we were one day away from the end of the season when we got a flat tire,” Hendrickson told me in 1997.

“So Gypsy and I decided to go on a hike to a mesa we had missed while the rest of our crew from the Black Hills Institute drove the 30 miles back to town to get the tire repaired.

“I got lost, it was foggy, and I walked in circles for two hours. Eventually the fog lifted. Hours later we reached Table Mountain. It wasn’t long before I saw three vortices exposed in the rock face.”

The rest is history – millions of years.

In 1997, the Field Museum purchased the five-ton T-Rex at a Sotheby’s auction for more than $8 million, with support from the McDonald’s Corporation and Walt Disney World Resorts.

John Zich/AFP/Getty Images

The money was received by the Indian family from South Dakota on whose ranch “Sue” was found.

Hendrickson was not present for “Sue’s” move in 2017, from her original spot on the museum’s first floor—now occupied by a cast of a 120-foot-long titanosaur from Argentina—to her new exhibition space on the second floor.

But Hendrickson makes no secret of her enthusiasm for the new home and gives it “a big compliment!”

Indiana Sue has her own story

Born in Chicago and raised in Munster, Indiana, Hendrickson was familiar with treasure hunting as a child, “instinctively walking with my head down,” she said.

Hendrickson is also a field paleontologist and helped excavate the Spanish shipwreck “San Diego,” which sank in the Philippines in 1600. He has searched mines in the Dominican Republic for insects trapped in amber, and spent years helping excavate Cleopatra’s palace in the sunken city of Thonis-Heracleion under the direction of the French marine archaeologist. Frank Goddio.

In addition, she has been running a free clinic for rescued animals on the Honduran island of Guanaja for years, where she lives on a 200-hectare “private and ecologically protected property that I would like to sell.”

At last glance, Hendrickson expressed his disappointment that no “Sue” books were available at the museum.

But I have one.

It is a children’s book entitled: “When Sue found Sue” by the author Toni Buzzeo with amazing illustrations by Diana Sudyka.

Sue Hendrickson was actually, as the book says, born to find things.

Needlelings …

Condolences to Chicago auction legend Leslie Hindman about the death of her larger-than-life father, Don Hindmanwho died last week at the age of 97. No father had a better daughter! Don Hindman, a native of New Martinsville, West Virginia, loved to tell stories from his hometown with his New Martinsville buddy, the late, legendary WTTW-TV legend John Calloway

Saturday Birthdays: Patrick Stewart, 84; Harrison Ford82; Cheech Marin, 78; Cameron Crowe67; Country singer Louise Mandrell, 70 … SBirthdays on Sunday; actress Jane Lynch64; “Sopranos” actor Vincent Pastore, 78; football player Rosey Grier, 92; “Sunset Boulevard” actress Nancy Olson, 96.