From the OS: Gator drags child into Seven Seas Lagoon

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wendysmom

Active Member
Just unspeakably horrible....praying for this poor family. We were just there with our kids and their two year old........I can't even imagine
 

Duckfan

Member
My family and I are leaving the MK now. There's been helicopters circling the GF for a while, and they just shut down the ferries.
 

JenniferS

Time To Be Movin’ Along
Premium Member
Tikiman says that the gator from a few weeks ago was caught.

image.png
 

natatomic

Well-Known Member
What a shame. Why was that 2-year-old child standing by himself on the banks of the lagoon at 9:30pm.
Should not a child that age be in bed by then? Where were his parents?

Dear Lord people. Horrible.

First of all, they were on vacation. So it's possible the family was allowing the child to stay awake to enjoy a movie or the fireworks or just playing with family on the beach.

Second of all, as someone who has lost a child, it is incredibly painful when strangers place blame on the parents when it was truly a situation outside their control. They will blame themselves enough as it is, whether it was their fault or not. They will ALWAYS wonder if there was something more they could have done. Please keep this type of speculation to yourself until the details come out.
 
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Electricsoup

Well-Known Member
What a shame. Why was that 2-year-old child standing by himself on the banks of the lagoon at 9:30pm.
Should not a child that age be in bed by then? Where were his parents?

Dear Lord people. Horrible.
Are you serious?

Rumors are saying the parents had the kid by the HAND and that the father tried to wrestle the gator for the child back. It's Disney and perhaps a late night vacation treat. You may want to roll back this attitude quite a bit - especially since those parents just probably lost a child.
 

tissandtully

Well-Known Member
First of all, they were on vacation. So it's possible the family was allowing the child to stay awake to enjoy a movie or the fireworks or just playing with family on the beach.

Second of all, as someone who has lost a child, it is incredibly painful when strangers place blame on the parents when it was truly a situation outside their control. Please keep this type of speculation to yourself until the details come out.
Also I think the last thing on anyone's mind at WDW is to watch out for aggressive gators.
 

Hrudey3032

Well-Known Member
What a shame. Why was that 2-year-old child standing by himself on the banks of the lagoon at 9:30pm.
Should not a child that age be in bed by then? Where were his parents?

Dear Lord people. Horrible.

You sir/madam are a troll. From all reports dad attempted to wrestle the gator. Instead of attacking the parents by saying the child was alone why not have some freaking compassion.
 

mouse_luv

Well-Known Member
These may be a reason why you can't win a lawsuit these are all over property and of course there's the famous no swimming treading in water at the seven seas lagoon. I'm an expert on Florida Wildlife law and to be honest it's one hard lawsuit to win. The owners of the propert are not liable to the safety of their guest occupants. You CAN'T CONTROL WILDLIFE! It's Florida there are millions of gators all across Florida

Signs from Shades of Green eh? (the picture with the post)
 

WDW1974

Well-Known Member
It's most certainly illegal, unless I guess since it's on WDW property they can do whatever they want. I'm born and raised Central Florida with Gators in my backyard and I've only heard of maybe small dogs being grabbed, a two year old is same size I guess, but around a whole crowd of people?

I know for growing up here to treat them with respect. But I also know the normal gator reaction to people is to swim away as fast they can. When one wants to hang out near people, you are dealing with a dangerous situation. My guess (don't want to jump to conclusions because they just might put some responsibility on Disney) is this creature had been fed a lot over a long period of time by humans and simply lost its fear. They aren't very smart and while it would be almost unheard of if said gator came up on land and went after an adult, a two-year-old is like a nice waterfowl or large possum ... it just is tragic.
 

drew81

Well-Known Member
Maybe it's time to start enforcing the Don't Feed the Wildlife rules on property. Caught doing it? Goodbye.

I'm not saying this is what happened tonight, but once certain species get imprinted on humans or associate food, it's hard going back.

Whatever has happened, my heart is with the family.
 

rufio

Well-Known Member
Reports are that family was watching a movie on the beach with many other families and children...

Obviously no one knows for sure right now, but I have a really hard time believing an alligator walked up into a crowd of people watching a movie to grab a baby. There must be more to the story.
 
Maybe it's time to start enforcing the Don't Feed the Wildlife rules on property. Caught doing it? Goodbye.

I'm not saying this is what happened tonight, but once certain species get imprinted on humans or associate food, it's hard going back.

Whatever has happened, my heart is with the family.
We had 2 small gators in Rivers of America for several months. Saw people throwing turkey legs all the time. We tried to stop them as best as possible but they still did. They then had to trap and remove theme shortly later.
 
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