A week like Orlandoâs would kill the tourist industry for any other town. I donât think it will have any impact here.
I really feel for that poor family. Why on earth, though, would you get in the water when there are signs around that explicitly say âNo Swimming?â Dang. Poor little kid.
This leaves me without words. My heart goes out to the family.
So sad. Also (in addition to the wading with a 2-year-old where there are âno swimmingâ signs) a story that just doesnât quite seem to add up.
At the Grand Canyon, there are overlooks where itâs pretty much a straight drop for a thousand feet. Thereâs a low stone wall to keep you from accidentally falling to your death while updating your status on your phone.
I watched a father of two young children, Iâm guessing about 4 and 6, pick them up and put them on the other side of the wall so he could take a picture. He intentionally put his kids three feet from a cliff edge, then stood back like thirty feet.
People do these things because theyâre convinced the world has been made safe and everything will be fine. But the world of soft rounded edges and safeguards born out of liability lawsuits is not safe. Just safer.
There are alligators in Florida, and water moccasins (aggressive venomous snakes). There are people texting while driving. Teach your kids situational awareness. Practice it yourself. Be in the moment. Then hope you are lucky.
They were wading in ankle to calf deep water. The two year old was wading, so the water wasnât that deep. Thatâs qualitatively different than swimming in the water.
They were at Disney World, the Grand Floridian, which is the highest end, most deluxe hotel on property. Disney is so homogenized, I donât think they realized there was any danger from going in 12-18 inches water.
If there was a more dangerous situation, there should have been a warning. I know itâs Florida. I know itâs nature, but my question (after doing premises liability cases for nearly 20 years) is how the alligator got onto Disney property. I know alligators are pretty much everywhere in Florida, but Disney property is pretty controlled.
Theyâre from Nebraska and probably not familiar with Alligators. Most of the lakes in central Florida arenât just marked âno swimmingâ but âDanger Alligatorsâ too and I imagine this one was too. Florida is a world away from most of the USA and itâs easy to get caught up in the tropical mystique. Palm tress, 95 degree temps and blistering sun. Tourists want to get their fill of it during their stay and often do dumb shit. Like my cracker self walking around NYC stunned by the towering buildings and not paying attention to traffic.
Like all Floridians I want my fellow Americans to have a great time here in the sun but for Godâs sake donât take on what you donât know about. âstupidâ varies on where you are and in Florida letting your kid go into a central Florida lake is very stupid. There isnât just gators in that water. We have very large snapping turtles ( no we do not have Alligator snappers here in Florida ) as well as vicious snakes ( no they are not water moccasins they are brown water snakes and mean as hell ) . So get a Margarita and a deck chair and enjoy the view. Try out the conch fritters but stay the hell out of the water.
That lagoon is gigantic, and it bounds other wild areas. It is pretty tightly controlled by Disney. So it wouldnât be easy for a small alligator to slip in. But itâs possible. Lots of people will want to jump on Disney or the parents. But itâs just a sad fact that every once in a while a predator kills someone.
What a horrible thing to happen. I know that 49 people died and more than 50 were wounded early Sunday morning, but the apparent killing of a child in front of his parents is horrifying.
And as for Disney, âno swimmingâ is not at all the same as âno wading, alligators may be present.â Actually, if alligators are present, people should be kept well back from the waterline, as 'gators can run out of the water after prey.
I saw Jeff Corwin on one of the morning news shows. He pointed out the impossibility of keeping alligators out of a body of water that size in central Florida surrounded as it is by marshlands, estuaries, canalsâŚetc. He also said they had already removed four gators from there overnight and this morning (*They were to be euthanized and âopenedâ to look for body parts.), so obviously there are a number in the lake. Itâs all just so tragic.
Just saw this on an online source:
[Jeff Corwin, a noted national animal expert, said he was surprised this happened so close to a highly regulated area but noted there are over a million alligators in Florida. Disney has many thousands of acres. An alligator could easily 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 vulnerable.
When a gator bites down, his jaws snap closed, with thousands of pounds of force, Corwin said. âI canât imagine the terror on these peopleâs minds trying to manage this,â he said.
Baby pen was near water ]
http://www.kabc.com/2016/06/15/gator-attacks-toddler-at-disney/
Horrendous nightmare for the grieving and heartbroken parents. My heart goes out to them.
Itâs terrible. I was there when I was 18 and although it wasnât on Disney property, a family was walking near a body of water in Orlando and their toddler was taken also. I was really shook up by that, coming from the Midwest and all. Just terrible.
You think they are faking? I do find it odd they havenât found the body yet in such a place. I hate to think the worst, since Iâve seen it happen before.
âhow the alligator got onto Disney propertyâ⌠like the alligator is all like âWell, itâs Disney property⌠I better stay off!â
Jesus fucking christ, itâs nature and youâre not going to stop it with âregulationsâ and property lines. No Swimming means STAY OUT OF THE WATER. Just stupid.
What a nightmare. I canât even imagine what the parents are going through. This is the first thing I read this morning and for a second I thought the story had a happy ending because of the headline. After reading the story I went and hugged my kid. Just so sad for this family. Poor child.
Weâve stayed at a number of the resorts around the Disney property in Lake Buena Vista, including the Polynesian Resort next to the Grand Floridian on this lagoon, but we always used the swimming pools on the property and never went down to the âlagoonââŚbut there was nothing to stop us had we want to go. We never thought of going into the lake waters, even to wade, but again we certainly could have. When they were smaller, our boys used the pools and we went to the parks, but I could have made a blunder and walked them along the shore of one of these lakes, so Iâm not going to point fingers at the parents; I canât begin to imagine the nightmare theyâre living right now.
Look, I saw an alligator eat a wild hog. I saw the hog moving along a path near the water, but not the gator before it struck. It was in the blink of an eye. What happened is tragic, yes. It was preventable. Respect any and all bodies of water along the gulf coast, from Texas to Florida. Gators attack by stealth, swim quietly, and strike quickly.
I suspect people who live in Florida are so innured to just assuming that any body of fresh water has alligators in it that the need to specifically warn people from Nebraska of that specific danger doesnât occur to them. For them, if you say âno swimmingâ the âor youâll be attacked by alligatorsâ just follows as a matter of course.
Hell, even Disneyâs local lawyers missed it.
Thanks for the reply. No one is expecting alligators to recognize property lines or recognize Disney property. But that property is pretty tightly controlled. Fences both aboveground and underwater. If alligators are present, then vigilance to relocate or remove them from the property. Millions of people visit there a year. Theyâre running a family friendly theme park, not a camping adventure.
No swimming actually means no swimming. Stay out of the water means stay out of the water. Watch out for alligators means watch out for alligators.
Even if they did nothing else, they really should have a better warning/ sign.
Really feel for the parents,I really wonder how this will play out now in comparison with the child who fell into the Gorilla cage and in some quarters the screaming for the parents of the boy who fell in the cage be criminally charged.One crictisim was âhow could a mother lose track of the childâ. Just curious really sad,they say the father fought with the alligator trying to save his child.
It was a tragedy. The kid was dipping his feet in 1 foot of water. No one is too blame. I cant imagine what this family is going through