Two year old snatched by alligator at Disney World (FL) resort

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Vash01

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http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/15/us/alligator-attacks-child-disney-florida/index.html

This is truly horrible. A family of 4 from Nebraska was relaxing at the edge of a lagoon, on a sandy beach, at the Disney resort in Florida when their 2 year old boy was taken by an Alligator. The father tried to rescue the child but was unsuccessful. Breaking news on major networks showed the police being interviewed. A search for the alligator and the toddler is going on.

Praying for the child and that poor family. It must be devastating.

Is there a curse of some kind on Florida right now? First it was the murder of Christina Grimmie, then the LGBT night club massacre in Orlando, and now this.
 
Are there known to be alligators in the area? Is it a lagoon or sandy beach? Fenced?

This just blows my mind...two years old. The poor father. That poor family. Such a tragedy.
 
Angelskates said:
Are there known to be alligators in the area? Is it a lagoon or sandy beach? Fenced?

This just blows my mind...two years old. The poor father. That poor family. Such a tragedy.
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From the article:

"Witnesses said the family was on the beach and a baby pen was about 20 to 30 yards from the water on the sand, according to Demings.
He said there are "No Swimming" signs at the lagoon and no one else was in the water at the time of the attack besides the child.
This body of water is not for recreational swimming "likely for that very reason," the reason being alligators.
"This is Florida and it's not uncommon for alligators to be in bodies of water," he said. "
 
What in the world did they think the "no swimming" sign was there for? Funsies? :wall:

Tourists do the same thing in the Northern Territory here. Warned by the locals and signs not to go swimming, then act all shocked when they do get taken by a croc.
 
misskarne said:
What in the world did they think the "no swimming" sign was there for? Funsies? :wall:

Tourists do the same thing in the Northern Territory here. Warned by the locals and signs not to go swimming, then act all shocked when they do get taken by a croc.
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To me no swimming sign doesn't mean you can't play on the beach or have a paddle? Why have a beach? Fair enough if there are signs saying " Aligators stay out of the water an beach".. Then I get your point, but not a no swimming sign. Those of us who don't live around Aligators of crocodiles would never think of this?

ETA, CNN confirmed that signage just said no swimming an child was on edge of water an the wildlife guy said it's very rare for Aligators to snatch anyone
 
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The no swimming signs are for the ameba that is in the lake that can cause a pretty serious infection in humans.
 
I had read the family was wading in the water, which I found hard to believe, given the no swimming signs. But if the signs were because of the amoeba, not alligators, and the family knew that, I couldunderstand them making that tragic mistake.
 
What is wrong people?

Doesn't the resort caution people? Inform people?
Florida...water....alligators. they kind of all go together.

How tragic for the family. They will suffer forever.
 
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The child was in the water. He was, according to multiple news reports, playing "in the shallows" of the lake, as was his sister.

“The child was playing in the water, just a foot or so into the water, and the alligator came up and attacked,” Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said. “The father at some point struggled to try to get his son and was not successful.”
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https://www.yahoo.com/news/alligator-drags-two-old-child-075350500.html

I've been to the Disney resorts along the lake. There are beaches, and the beaches are very clearly signposted "no swimming". There are pools very near the beaches where you can swim, and lifeguards at the pools.

Here you can see the Grand Floridian resort, the lake, and the beach: https://thenypost.files.wordpress.c...and_spa_hotel.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1920

Here is a map of the Grand Floridian, so you can see where the beach is in relation to the pools: http://www.wdwinfo.com/resortmaps/grandflomap.htm
 
misskarne said:
What in the world did they think the "no swimming" sign was there for? Funsies? :wall:

Tourists do the same thing in the Northern Territory here. Warned by the locals and signs not to go swimming, then act all shocked when they do get taken by a croc.
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And the same in Canada in National Parks in the mountains like Banff & Jasper, where despite all the warnings, tourists try to feed the bears and other wild animals and even pet them, like they think they are big cuddly teddy bears or something. These are wild animals folks - people get killed by bears.
 
AxelAnnie said:
What is wrong people?

Doesn't the resort caution people? Inform people?
Florida...water....alligators. they kind of all go together.

How tragic for the family. They will suffer forever.
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With news reports about alligators on golf courses, alligators in pools and whatnot, do you really need to inform people that there may be alligators in murky lakes in Florida? The state that is home to the Everglades and swamp land? To me that is kind of the equivalent of needing to put the warning "caution, it's hot" on a coffee cup. (Not to mention that "no swimming" means don't go into the water, no matter what the reason for the sign).
 
WildRose said:
And the same in Canada in National Parks in the mountains like Banff & Jasper, where despite all the warnings, tourists try to feed the bears and other wild animals and even pet them, like they think they are big cuddly teddy bears or something. These are wild animals folks - people get killed by bears.
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People do the same in Yellowstone National Park, despite signs to stay away from the animals. They are wild animals, not zoo animals.

It seems alligator warning signs should be on all beaches where there is a possibility of alligators. Last year I visited Denali National park, and they had signs of bear sightings everywhere, including hotels.

Regardless, my heart hurts for this family. What a terrible tragedy! At this point there is no hope at all. When Breaking News appeared last night, it was already a couple hours since the child was snatched. It sounded very bad then, and it is a thousand times worse now.
 
ballettmaus said:
With news reports about alligators on golf courses, alligators in pools and whatnot, do you really need to inform people that there may be alligators in murky lakes in Florida? The state that is home to the Everglades and swamp land? To me that is kind of the equivalent of needing to put the warning "caution, it's hot" on a coffee cup. (Not to mention that "no swimming" means don't go into the water, no matter what the reason for the sign).
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Totally agree. It is right up there with people who go on safari in a game preserve and though warned to stay in the car, get out to just take one or two selfies of the rhinos!

This poor kid.
 
Vash01 said:
It seems alligator warning signs should be on all beaches where there is a possibility of alligators. Last year I visited Denali National park, and they had signs of bear sightings everywhere, including hotels.
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Common sense needs to come in somewhere. My sister runs a bed and breakfast in Montana. It backs up to Glacier National Park. She does an entire orientation with her patrons on the importance of the can of bear spray, and how to use it. She also tells them not to try it in their room. And at least twice a season some goon decides they will just shoot a little bear spray in their room to see how it works. Not smart. Always have your bear spray with you does not mean unless you forget it, or you think you really don't need it.

I also think that people let their brains go on vacation when they are on vacation. I have lived in a couple of tourist towns, Malibu, Venice Beach....tourists just walk across the middle of the street (in traffic). I often think they must think they are under some "Vacation Umbrella" where if you step in front of a car while on vacation, it won't hurt.
 
So many people and so many alligators in Florida: I think seeing the footage of a gator trying to get through a front door was a bit shocking. And then a gator was so hungry he was trying to pull a large, adult male into the water by his hand and the gator did not succeed. I'm not sure what they can do about overpopulation.
 
I don't get the point of killing the alligators and cutting them open to see if the boy is inside. Obviously the boy would be dead. I realize finding the body parts (yuk) would provide concrete proof of what happened to the child. But you certainly can't open up or ultra sound all the gators.

I just heard they have switched the search (officially) from search to recovery. This has to be haunting for everyone involved.
 
Seeing the photo, it looks like a friendly beach. If the child was not in the water and just on the sand, the same thing could have happened. Why make it so inviting? Danger! Do not enter water! would have been a better sign. We have signs for no drinking water and they explain Recycled water, Do not drink. I am sure if a parent saw a sign Do not enter water, Alligators present, and have a barrier up they would act differently. And I'm sure Disney would have had to make it all much less inviting for children.
 
4rkidz said:
To me no swimming sign doesn't mean you can't play on the beach or have a paddle? Why have a beach?
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By "have a paddle" do you mean get in the water? Because I would call that swimming.

And wasn't the beach made by the earth, not people?

There have been some other incidents lately where people come to harm because they ignore signs. Lat week a man died because he decided to leave the path (with signs everywhere saying not to leave the path), and he fell into a hot spring. That incident made me wonder - in the US we have warnings everywhere, fences, everything is about keeping us from harm. I kind of wonder if it reduces our collective ability to accurately assess danger for ourselves.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-yellowstone-death-20160609-snap-story.html

I feel very sorry for the child.
 
Congress will pass a bill among it mandantory that gators must read English... :P

Considering how those boys act, wouldn't surprise me in a bit........
 
The rescue operation has turned to recovery now. The tot is believed to be dead. It's been 15 hours since the attack. There is often a temptation to assign blame when a tragedy like this happens, but it is much better to have compassion for the grieving family. Everybody makes a mistake (of any kind) at some point, but only a few have to pay such a horrible price for it.
 
This is hauntingly sad, and I'm so sorry for the family.

I was reading the Disney boards this morning and found that there are a lot of seasoned Disney vacationers who never thought of alligators on Disney property, they thought that somehow everything was safe there. Others said it should have been obvious that any body of water in Florida could contain a gator. Still, others described seeing them all over the Disney property, often in the parks themselves.
 
Vash01 said:
It seems alligator warning signs should be on all beaches where there is a possibility of alligators. Last year I visited Denali National park, and they had signs of bear sightings everywhere, including hotels.
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That would entail signposting every body of water in Florida and several other states. Including the oceans. Florida alone has over 12,000 square miles of water.
 
genevieve said:
By "have a paddle" do you mean get in the water? Because I would call that swimming.

And wasn't the beach made by the earth, not people?

There have been some other incidents lately where people come to harm because they ignore signs. Lat week a man died because he decided to leave the path (with signs everywhere saying not to leave the path), and he fell into a hot spring. That incident made me wonder - in the US we have warnings everywhere, fences, everything is about keeping us from harm. I kind of wonder if it reduces our collective ability to accurately assess danger for ourselves.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-yellowstone-death-20160609-snap-story.html

I feel very sorry for the child.
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I wonder if it's a kind of warning blindness now, and miscommunication about what the signs really mean. If there are warning signs everywhere, they don't really mean anything anymore, and people start to cherry-pick what the warnings are really for.

If the sign did say "No swimming," they might have assumed that wading was safe. Cause if it didn't say that wading was unsafe, and people simply might assume that the danger was in putting your face into the water, not a giant fast-moving creature with teeth coming out of the water and grabbing you.

A giant sign warning of alligators might have gotten the "no swimming or wading or even being close to the water!" idea across. That's a way to engage people's ability to assess danger properly.

Ugh that poor kid and his poor family. :(
 
Maybe, but a couple grabbed a newborn bison in Yellowstone and put it in their car because they thought it had been abandoned by the mother. It hadn't. But then the mother wouldn't accept it and the park had to euthanize the baby. Because people think animals are like they are in cartoons. I once saw an idiot feeding big horn sheep out of their car window in Banff. Right up until the ewe reared up on the car and shoved her head in the window after more food. This in spite of signs everywhere that said don't feed the sheep. We :rofl: at ruined paint job on the vehicle she did with her hooves. Plus, it ticked her off when they tried to roll the window up on her head and she butted the door of the car. This is not the fault of a child or the alligator. It's the fault of two adults who should have better sense.
 
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