This summer? More like this week.

Assuming that's a snapper, they have high mortality rates, both pre and post-hatch. During my two-week tour in June of 2018 I watched a mother lay eggs in a ditch she had dug in soft ground by the side of a road near Westhampton, MA. Not surprisingly, there was a reservoir close by. She would squeeze out one about every minute. One female can lay 100 eggs. Once she's done, she covers the eggs with dirt. That ends her involvement as a mother. The hatchlings must survive on their own.

A couple of days later I was riding the Harlem Valley Trail in NY. Along a part of the trail near a large pond there were broken egg shells. I figured they must have hatched, but a local told me raccoons often find the nests, dig up the eggs and eat the embryos.

You likely saved a life.