Park guest Victoria Biniak told Local 6 that the trainer was a veteran of SeaWorld and had just finished explaining to the audience the show they were about to see.
At that point, Biniak said, the whale came up from the water and grabbed the woman.
“He was thrashing her around pretty good. It was violent,’” Biniak told Local 6.
The whale “took off really fast in the tank, and then he came back, shot up in the air, grabbed the trainer by the waist and started thrashing around, and one of her shoes flew off.”
She said sirens went off and everyone was forced to leave the stadium.
Guests were evacuated from the area. The park is not shut down
Witnesses are reporting that the victim was a trainer who was dragged into the tank and drowned by the whale.
Around six months before Tilikum came to SeaWorld Orlando, the whale was involved in an incident that resulted in the trainer’s death. In 1999, a man who snuck into the park was found dead in the whale’s tank.
“Tillikum measures 22 feet 6 inches long and weighs in at 12,300 pounds (as of 2007). His pectoral fins are six and one half feet long, his massive flukes curl under, and his 6-foot-tall dorsal fin is flopped completely to his left side, and weighs close to 200 pounds. He is the largest Orca in captivity and also the most successful sire in captivity, with 13 offspring, 10 of which are still alive.”
http://www.wftv.com/news/22659910/detail.html
Looks like it is time for a big ole fish fry...
Granted the first victim snuck into the park, but dead is dead.
He should have been retired then.