Boy jumped into lake a Epcot!

Megamazing

Megamazing

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In the Parks
Yes
Lokheed said:
Speaking as the parent of an autistic person: Thank you everyone in this thread for not piling on the parents. When I opened the thread, I kind of expected it to have multiple critiques of the parents for not controlling him, and was very pleased it to find otherwise.

When I first heard about this story yesterday, my immediate thought was "That sounds like something Ben would try to do..."

I was not even remotely surprised to hear that the boy involved is autistic. (And by the way, bclane has it exactly correct, there is no right or wrong way to describe an autistic person, presuming of course you are not being deliberately derogatory)

Kudos to the Disney Cast Members for responding to the situation well. I have always been very impressed by how well Disney trains its people to handle special needs persons.
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In the video you can hear a teenager (or someone who sounded like one) saying "this is called 'When you don't watch your kid." And I wish I could have responded to tell them how much of an they sounded like.
 
Megamazing

Megamazing

Active Member
In the Parks
Yes
Corey P said:
My kids do crap like this so I don't doubt someone said it. Usually people who say stuff like that don't have kids and are never around them. So what?
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Yes I'm fully aware that most people who say that crap don't have kids. Doesn't make them any less of an
 
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FettFan

FettFan

Well-Known Member
JudyHopps said:
Before you guys go on jabbering about, I'd like to say that this boy had autism and it was revealed that the boy was hot and wanted to cool down. Why couldn't the family go back to their hotel and go the pool? Or go into the cool A/C and grab some water?
Thank god Disney's Cast members stepped right into action before it was too late!
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So that makes it all alright then? No. Ban the family. Too much of a liability if the child should drown, or become a reptilian quick-service snack.
Yes, I'm hard-edged about this, perhaps unnecessarily so....but the thing is, in an amusement park, rules are made for the guests safety. That's why there are fences around all of the water features in Epcot.
I don't care if he's got autism or cancer or anything else....if he's disobeying the rules and putting himself in harm's way, he's out of the park. Period.
 
Megamazing

Megamazing

Active Member
In the Parks
Yes
Corey P said:
Back to who cares? I can act like an at a high level and I just don't care what people think, in fact when I'm on a roll many people enjoy my lack of concern for just about everything. I do keep it classy though. LOL.
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I'm not sure what your point is. Do you want some sort of prize for being cooler than everyone else because you don't care?
 
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WondersOfLife

WondersOfLife

Blink, blink. Breathe, breathe. Day in, day out.
The Mom said:
Of course, that was before social media and cell phones
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Basically your answer. It's harder to keep Disney from letting something like this go public than an exact same situation happening before cell phones.

From - A Millennial. (Whips out handy dandy Snapchat)
 
FettFan

FettFan

Well-Known Member
Corey P said:
I've seen that guy and he's just a small unmature gator, he isn't attacking you. Period. I have live around alligators for a long time and on occasion have them in my back yard. The ones that made it into a Epcot lagoon are not to be feared. PM me if you want an explanation of how gators work. In general they're harmless. Get into swamps with 50 year old 10 footers and that's a different matter.
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<--- South Louisiana. I know how gators work, especially in areas where idiot developers build brand new subdivisions in their habitat.
8728134_G.jpg
 
bclane

bclane

Well-Known Member
Corey P said:
I also live in a kids neighborhood so whether we like it or not everyone knows everyone mainly because we need to keep a look out on who's who in the kid world and who is doing what. We all profile them, looking for their trade mark actions. Out of 12 houses on my street we have 22 kids, 6 boys in 9th grade alone. Crowd control is needed and proper guidance with some respect for your elders along with some fear is needed. Group effort is going on. The girls and boys are starting to mix together so I'm sure fun is right around the corner.
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Things do get more difficult when the hormones start kicking in that's for sure. I am currently a 7th grade teacher and that seems to be the magic grade for a lot of kids (not all obviously, but definitely for a large percentage).
 
ItlngrlBella

ItlngrlBella

Well-Known Member
IMFearless said:
Having spent a lifetime working with children and adults with Autism I can completely see how this could happen. Even with the most experienced staff an individual can act quickly in a way that is very hard to predict.

Most fences would need to be fairly extreme to prevent this type of individual from getting to the water. Many severely autistic children are extremely agile at climbing, with great speed, and no sense of danger.

Appropriate high levels of supervision with a good knowledge of the person is the only mechanism to maintain a person's safety and avoid incidents such as this. The environment can not really be adapted enough to make it safe in most situations.
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If this is the *first time* this has happened in the history of EPCOT, that's a pretty good run.
 
MrHappy

MrHappy

Well-Known Member
FettFan said:
So that makes it all alright then? No. Ban the family. Too much of a liability if the child should drown, or become a reptilian quick-service snack.
Yes, I'm hard-edged about this, perhaps unnecessarily so....but the thing is, in an amusement park, rules are made for the guests safety. That's why there are fences around all of the water features in Epcot.
I don't care if he's got autism or cancer or anything else....if he's disobeying the rules and putting himself in harm's way, he's out of the park. Period.
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...and another thing, why do handicapped people get all the good parking spots? Get there early like the rest of us.:cautious:
Congratulations, I was waiting to use the Ignore feature. Maybe others can keep me posted on your 'hard edged' opinions.
 
FettFan

FettFan

Well-Known Member
MrHappy said:
...and another thing, why do handicapped people get all the good parking spots? Get there early like the rest of us.:cautious:
Congratulations, I was waiting to use the Ignore feature. Maybe others can keep me posted on your 'hard edged' opinions.
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1. Argumentum non sequitur. That is, your argument does not follow. Your example of handicapped parking in no way ties to the subject at hand: that an unsupervised child willingly climbed over a fence and jumped into a water feature that nobody is supposed to be in. Handicapped parking spaces are one of the conditions of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Swimming in a fenced-in area meant to keep people out is not.

2. What I promote is a radical new idea: that living children, regardless of how upset they or their family might be given their circumstances, are actually preferable to dead children. Fortunately in this case, the child was quickly retrieved by security cast members.
But what happens if the kid decides to do it again?
Let's say they go to the Magic Kingdom, and he slips away to take a swim at Tom Sawyer's Island....and winds up getting himself caught underneath and crushed by the bulk of the Liberty Belle.

So yeah, let the family complain about being asked to leave, let them hire a lawyer and threaten a class-action lawsuit over their child's disability....but in the end, they get to return home as a family.
 
muddyrivers

muddyrivers

Well-Known Member
FettFan said:
1. Argumentum non sequitur. That is, your argument does not follow. Your example of handicapped parking in no way ties to the subject at hand: that an unsupervised child willingly climbed over a fence and jumped into a water feature that nobody is supposed to be in. Handicapped parking spaces are one of the conditions of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Swimming in a fenced-in area meant to keep people out is not.

2. What I promote is a radical new idea: that living children, regardless of how upset they or their family might be given their circumstances, are actually preferable to dead children. Fortunately in this case, the child was quickly retrieved by security cast members.
But what happens if the kid decides to do it again?
Let's say they go to the Magic Kingdom, and he slips away to take a swim at Tom Sawyer's Island....and winds up getting himself caught underneath and crushed by the bulk of the Liberty Belle.

So yeah, let the family complain about being asked to leave, let them hire a lawyer and threaten a class-action lawsuit over their child's disability....but in the end, they get to return home as a family.
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I understand what you are trying to say, but I also don't think you are looking at this from the family's point of view. First of all, imagine their embarrassment that this even happened in the first place and attracted such a crowd. It's not like they told their child to go take a swim. You can see how the child pulled away from the security guard after she got him out of the water. The child likely did the same to his parents and ran off before mom or dad could grab him.

With the logic you applied to your statement, this child and his family should be banned from any area with a body of water because of the same risk. There's a difference between something done accidentally and purposefully, and why this family would never be kicked out by Disney, yet the yahoo who climbed the tower in Mexico was.
 
21stamps

21stamps

Well-Known Member
muddyrivers said:
I understand what you are trying to say, but I also don't think you are looking at this from the family's point of view. First of all, imagine their embarrassment that this even happened in the first place and attracted such a crowd. It's not like they told their child to go take a swim. You can see how the child pulled away from the security guard after she got him out of the water. The child likely did the same to his parents and ran off before mom or dad could grab him.

With the logic you applied to your statement, this child and his family should be banned from any area with a body of water because of the same risk. There's a difference between something done accidentally and purposefully, and why this family would never be kicked out by Disney, yet the yahoo who climbed the tower in Mexico was.
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I think it's a knee jerk reaction to blame the parents first, and most of the time not warranted.

I was guilty of it with the little boy and the death of Harambe. Initially these were my thoughts-
"Why wasn't she watching?" "Don't have that many kids if you can't keep track of them" "This stupid irresponsible mother is responsible for this horrific event!"
(Private thoughts, not displayed on social media)

Then I realized that it could happen to me. There's been times when one child has escaped my sight momentarily. Luckily he's never climbed into a gorilla exhibit or jumped into a fountain at Epcot, but I can not responsibly or honestly say that my eyes have been on him at every single moment.
I don't think any parent can say that...maybe the parents who use a leash, but not the rest of us.
Once the self admittance and understanding sets in, then I think our next reaction is sympathy for the parents, for the embarrassment of those moments and the social media judgements that result.
 
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