A killer whale with a history of killing its trainers struck again at SeaWorld on Wednesday, apparently killing one of its handlers during a live show while an audience looked on in disbelief.
An official says 40-year-old Dawn Brancheau was the trainer killed during the Dining with Shamu event.
A witness, Victoria Biniak said that the trainer had just finished explaining to the audience the show they were about to see. Unfortunately, no one was prepared for what happened next.
The whale apparently came out of the water, snatching up the woman in her jaws and "thrashed her all around," as a horrified audience watched helplessly.
"He was thrashing her around pretty good," Biniak said. "It was violent."
SeaWorld officials said the trainer was one of the park's most experienced and that she slipped in the tank. Still, other witnesses claim the whale lept out of the water, grabbed the woman's arm and then drug her underwater.
The whale in question's real name is Tillikum, nicknamed "Tilly," and he isn't the nicest mammal in the pod. According to the Orlando Sentinel, whale was blamed for the drowning of one of his trainers in 1991 during a performance on in British Columbia. He was sold to SeaWorld the next year.
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In 1999, the 5-ton orca was found with the dead body of a naked homeless man on his back.
Daniel Dukes, 27, reportedly made his way past security at SeaWorld, remaining in the park after it had closed. Wearing only his underwear, Dukes either jumped, fell or was pulled into the frigid water of Tilikum's huge tank.
An autopsy ruled that he died of hypothermia in the 50-degree water. Dukes' parents filed a lawsuit against the park later that year but later withdrew it.
There have been several previous attacks on whale trainers at SeaWorld parks.
In Nov. 2006, trainer Kenneth Peters, 39, was bitten and held underwater several times by a 7,000-pound killer whale during a
show at SeaWorld's San Diego park. He escaped with a broken foot.
The 17-foot-long orca who attacked him was the dominant female of SeaWorld San Diego's seven killer whales. She had attacked Peters two other times, in 1993 and 1999.
In 2004, another whale at the company's San Antonio park tried to hit one of the trainers and attempted to bite him. He also
escaped.
In December, a whale drowned a trainer at a Spanish zoo.
