The Orlando are has been in the news too often this past week. Both of the incidents being recognized nationally are unfortunately very tragic. The first incident was the night club shooting that has been displayed on every news channel. The second incident occurred on Tuesday night at Disney World.
An alligator snatched a 2-year-old boy Tuesday night in a lagoon at a Disney hotel near Orlando as his father desperately tried to save him.
The child was on the edge of the lagoon when the alligator dragged him into the water, according to the boy’s family, said Florida Fish & Wildlife executive director Nick Wiley. Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said the child was “wading … along the lake’s edge at the time that the alligator attacked.” Williamson said the boy was in less than a foot of water.
The family of four — the boy, his parents and his 4-year-old sister — was on vacation from Nebraska, Demings said. They arrived Sunday.
The parents watched as the alligator attacked the toddler at the Seven Seas Lagoon. The lagoon is connected to a series of canals which feed into large bodies of water. “The father actually went into the water to wrestle his son from the grips of the alligator,” he said. The father suffered minor scratches on his hand but was unsuccessful in getting his son back.The mother also went into the water, trying to find her child, he said.
“Everyone here at the Walt Disney Resort is devastated by this tragic accident,” said Jacquee Wahler, a vice president at Walt Disney World Resort. “Our thoughts are with the family. We are helping the family and doing everything we can to assist law enforcement.”
Jeff Corwin, a noted national animal expert, said he was surprised this happened so close to a highly regulated area but noted there are millions of alligators in Florida. Disney has many thousand acres. An alligator could make its way, undetected through some swamp and marsh into a lagoon near where people congregate.A gator that size would be unlikely to attack an adult, he said, but a child would be more vulnerable. When a gator bites down, his jaws snap closed, with thousands of pounds of force, Corwin said. “I can’t imagine the terror on these people’s minds trying to manage this,” he said.
As part of the attempt to find the young boy and answers, Wildlife officials pulled four alligators from a lagoon at Walt Disney World while searching
As of April, only one other major alligator attack has been reported this year, according to Florida Fish & Wildlife. That person survived the attack, but required medical care. In 2015, there were nine major unprovoked attacks with one fatality.
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