2 Year Old Dragged into Water by Gator at Disney Resort

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:" It was like Mr. Burns' legal team in the Simpsons "

lol. Just as I'd imagine.

My next question is why were there lifeguards if swimming was not allowed?

To save the people who ignore the signs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not just this lagoon. People on disboards have spotted them at Magic Kingdom, at nearly every body of water on every property, golf course, wilderness trails, waiting for the ferry, etc.

How is this possible? Empty the bodies of water, kill the gators, and secure the perimeter.

Alligators aren't like koi fish. They don't just go where you put them. They go everywhere.

+1, they are land and water animals. They slither along roads, etc. kind of like snakes do. I thought Disney kept them out with fences, though.

http://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2016/06/01/giant-alligator-golf-course-clip-newday.cnn

Watch this clip. There are gigantic monsters near golf courses and resorts. And that is not all - invasive species like Burmese Pythons and Nile Crocodiles are flourishing there in the wild. They should just give hunters permission to hunt the invasive species and sell their skins.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in Orlando and the seven seas lagoon isn't for swimming. Florida lakes are unsafe to swim in due to bacteria. Disney has no alligator signs posted.

I can see how alligator signs might not be very "magical" but honestly that is appalling. Especially if they are as prevalent as this thread suggests.

I am just the opposite, I sorta assume everyone understands that Florida equals gators.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're still going in July, taking our two girls.

+1 we are still going too in July. Taking my 4yo.

I feel sorry for people who fall for the Disney hype. Take your children to a place where they can see real nature and not the fakery of Disney. .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not just this lagoon. People on disboards have spotted them at Magic Kingdom, at nearly every body of water on every property, golf course, wilderness trails, waiting for the ferry, etc.

How is this possible? Empty the bodies of water, kill the gators, and secure the perimeter.

Alligators aren't like koi fish. They don't just go where you put them. They go everywhere.

+1, they are land and water animals. They slither along roads, etc. kind of like snakes do. I thought Disney kept them out with fences, though.

http://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2016/06/01/giant-alligator-golf-course-clip-newday.cnn

Watch this clip. There are gigantic monsters near golf courses and resorts. And that is not all - invasive species like Burmese Pythons and Nile Crocodiles are flourishing there in the wild. They should just give hunters permission to hunt the invasive species and sell their skins.

You couldn't pay me to live in Florida. No amount of money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're still going in July, taking our two girls.

+1 we are still going too in July. Taking my 4yo.

I feel sorry for people who fall for the Disney hype. Take your children to a place where they can see real nature and not the fakery of Disney. .

Real nature like alligators?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In FL, it is reasonable to assume every body of fresh water -- excluding swimming pools -- has gators.

Maybe, but I don't know how a family from Nebraska would know that. My heart breaks for them.

Who are these people who don't know that FL has gators? I've never lived in FL and yet somehow I have been let in on the apparent secret that alligators are common there. I am certainly not jumping on the blame-the-parents bandwagon, but this whole concept that people are unaware of gators in FL is just weird.

In all seriousness, my heart breaks for this family, too. This is a tragic accident and I cannot imagine what these parents witnessed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The skeptic (and prosecutor) in me wonders if anyone actually saw the child on the beach other than the parents. The whole story is strange. Why is the four year old in the play pen while the baby is allowed to wander alone in the water in the darK?

Otherwisee, it is just a horrible tragedy. Disney has been at that location for more than 40 years. If they were truly negligent, this would not be the first incident of this kind.

Weird -- the 4 yr old in the playpen caught my eye too. Others metioned movies and parades -- yet I haven't read witness accounts of seeing this family.

None of this makes me bat an eye.

Two year old is wild and stired up from all the excitement. Parents let him run around to burn off energy until the parade with dad strolling a few feet away in eyeshot and voice control but not arms length.

Four year old is tired and worn out and having a meltdown, so mom says "Fine. Get in the pac n play and lay down while your brother runs off some steam. We lugged it out here so someone might as well use it."

Dad is tired, feeling laid back because after all, they are on vacation and it's Disney. The toddler sees the gator and runs directly towards it because after all it looks just like the Captain Hook crocodile he has seen all over the park and Jake and the Neverland Pirate. Dad tries but he does not react quickly enough to get to his son before the aligator gets him and by the time he gets there it is too late

None of this, the toddler near the waters edge or the four year old in the playpen sounds surprising.

And why did Disney have a lifeguard stationed at an alligator infested beach if they weren't allowing swimming?

I was just at this resort last month. There are lifeguards at the pool, which is maybe 75 feet from the lake. There are No Swimming signs everywhere in the lake itself. There's a lot of activity out by the lake, including movies.

I don't think Disney is negligent -- or the parents. It's just a terrible tragedy. There are gators everywhere in Florida today (when I grew up there, they were almost extinct). I imagine they will alter their signage. Still, it is like sharks in the ocean. We all know they are there. But you don't think about one nabbing you in shallow water.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The skeptic (and prosecutor) in me wonders if anyone actually saw the child on the beach other than the parents. The whole story is strange. Why is the four year old in the play pen while the baby is allowed to wander alone in the water in the darK?

Otherwisee, it is just a horrible tragedy. Disney has been at that location for more than 40 years. If they were truly negligent, this would not be the first incident of this kind.

Weird -- the 4 yr old in the playpen caught my eye too. Others metioned movies and parades -- yet I haven't read witness accounts of seeing this family.

None of this makes me bat an eye.

Two year old is wild and stired up from all the excitement. Parents let him run around to burn off energy until the parade with dad strolling a few feet away in eyeshot and voice control but not arms length.

Four year old is tired and worn out and having a meltdown, so mom says "Fine. Get in the pac n play and lay down while your brother runs off some steam. We lugged it out here so someone might as well use it."

Dad is tired, feeling laid back because after all, they are on vacation and it's Disney. The toddler sees the gator and runs directly towards it because after all it looks just like the Captain Hook crocodile he has seen all over the park and Jake and the Neverland Pirate. Dad tries but he does not react quickly enough to get to his son before the aligator gets him and by the time he gets there it is too late

None of this, the toddler near the waters edge or the four year old in the playpen sounds surprising.

And why did Disney have a lifeguard stationed at an alligator infested beach if they weren't allowing swimming?

Dumbest post of the day. It's early, though.

Projection wasn't just being used for the movie

[Anonymous]

I know Florida has gators, but I wouldn't have assumed that they are everywhere in densely populated areas like in and around the Disney parks. I get it now, but I wouldn't have assumed that that they are there. And I would've assumed that they were NOT in a theme park. Stupid assumption, I guess, but I think it's a common one. I do think there should be signs indicating the possibility.

I do agree with PP that if this is the first instance in the whole history of the park, Disney probably does make an extensive effort to keep them out, but for whatever reason, that effort failed this time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just read the report. There were "No Swimming" signs posted all over the property. There was a lifeguard on duty, but apparently too far away.

My question is why didn't the lifeguard tell the parents to keep the toddler out of the water? The lifeguard is there to enforce rules.

Maybe the lifeguard was on duty at a nearby pool in the resort

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"So far, no. I suspect there will be a lot more dead gators from that lake. If anything, I think Disney is likely to use this to get whatever waivers they need to cull alligators on their property more ruthlessly. "

Good. I hope they start culling statewide, and throughout the Southeast. Enough with the stupid environmentalists. The gators are a dangerous nuisance. They should have died out with the dinosaurs. Biologically, they're much, much older than us. They've had a good run, now it's time to go.

When you remove in animals natural predators, other species are allowed to flourish, and then become problems. We can just remove one creature from the ecosystem everything to me fine.

What would happen if we remove just the mosquitoes though?

I am completely on board with this. I don't care what the consequences are. We'll deal with them.

[Anonymous]

In the next 20 years, because of global warming places like Maryland will have crocs and gators in the water-bodies.


Its not only gators. Aggressive venomous snakes like water moccasins are also in every water filled ditch in Fl.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is a 2-yr-old up at 9:30?

that's your response to this tragedy? are you the spawn of trump?

Poor parenting us often discussed and this is an example if a two year old up too late and parents no watching. Or dud I miss the oart where the alligator broke into their place and removed the sleeping child from a bed

What is "too late?" Not everyone has the exact same schedule. I knew a family where the Dad worked a late shift (till 8 pm) every night so the whole family adjusted it's schedule where the kids stayed up late so they could actually spend time with their Dad daily. The kids were not sleep deprived--they just slept later in the morning.

The Electrical Water Pageant goes by the hotels on the lagoon about 9:00, they said there was a movie on the beach, and fireworks are about 9:00 and you can see them from outside the hotels. There are tons of reasons a family at Disney would be outside with a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old at 9:00, especially if its the third night of their trip -- that might be the night they planned to stay up and do the nighttime stuff. This isn't people taking their 2-year-old to a casino at 11:30 pm, this is a family doing Disney stuff at Disney.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is a 2-yr-old up at 9:30?

that's your response to this tragedy? are you the spawn of trump?

Poor parenting us often discussed and this is an example if a two year old up too late and parents no watching. Or dud I miss the oart where the alligator broke into their place and removed the sleeping child from a bed

What is "too late?" Not everyone has the exact same schedule. I knew a family where the Dad worked a late shift (till 8 pm) every night so the whole family adjusted it's schedule where the kids stayed up late so they could actually spend time with their Dad daily. The kids were not sleep deprived--they just slept later in the morning.

The Electrical Water Pageant goes by the hotels on the lagoon about 9:00, they said there was a movie on the beach, and fireworks are about 9:00 and you can see them from outside the hotels. There are tons of reasons a family at Disney would be outside with a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old at 9:00, especially if its the third night of their trip -- that might be the night they planned to stay up and do the nighttime stuff. This isn't people taking their 2-year-old to a casino at 11:30 pm, this is a family doing Disney stuff at Disney.

+1