ORLANDO – A SeaWorld trainer was killed Wednesday when an orca pulled her into the water as she was talking to visitors.
Orange County Fire Rescue spokesman John Mulhall said paramedics were called to the Shamu Stadium at the theme park resort where they found a worker who could not be revived.
Here are the parts that got my attention:
“The trainer was explaining different things about the whale … and then the trainer that was down there walked away from the window … and then Telly (the whale) took off really fast in the tank and he came back, shot up in the air, grabbed the trainer by the waist and started thrashing (her) around,” Biniak said.
It turns out this killer whale has a track record:
WKMG reported Biniak as saying that the killer whale — a 30-year-old, 12,300-pound male orca that also is called Tillikum — does not typically have a trainer in its tank because it is too large.
The same orca was cited in two earlier deaths, according the Humane Society of the United States, which has campaigned to keep marine mammals out of theme parks.
Funny- what a hoot!
That is such a shame… but it's a reminder that it's difficult to keep something that large and that intelligent in a confined space, and not have it get pissed off at its captors.