ORLANDO, Fla. -- Officials in Florida say a veteran 40-year-old trainer at SeaWorld was fatally injured by a whale when she slipped and fell in its tank.

SeaWorld Orlando President Dan Brown says officials are investigating but it appears to be an accident.

Orange County Fire Rescue spokesman John Mulhall said paramedics were called to the Shamu Stadium at the theme park resort where they found a worker who could not be revived.

Park guest Victoria Biniak told WKMG-TV that the trainer had just finished explaining to the audience the show they were about to see.

The whale "took off really fast in the tank, and then he came back, shot up in the air, grabbed the trainer by the waist and started thrashing around, and one of her shoes flew off," Biniak told the station.

"He was thrashing her around pretty good," she said. "It was violent."

The guests were asked to leave and the park was closed.
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ugh..that's horrible!
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So Sorry To Hear This. I Guess We All Have To Realize That Whales are still "Wild Animals".
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http://www.amazon.com/Man-prey-James...7054119&sr=8-1
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Wow, what a way to go. Crazy
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Wow. Saw that show a lot of years ago. Could not imagine the trauma of the people (and kids) watching. So sad.
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Terrible. We have season passes for Seaworld SD and have seen that show many many times, the death is bad enough but to think that the stadium was full of people who had to witness that is crazy.
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We were attending a Shamu show at Sea World in San Diego (15 years ago) and our 9 year old son was invited to come down and sit on the whale... We thought it was really cool at the time.

It's amazing how much a little perspective changes things...
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Sad
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My condolences to her family. Killer whales are not pets. It is just like the lion tamer who sticks his head in the lions mouth. One day that lion is going to bite.
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That's very sad.
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This is a very sad event. The local news decided that the one witness interview that they would show was a women saying how nice it was that they refunded their full purchase price.

Sometimes the local news just sux. :-)
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It's hard to believe that this same whale killed someone at another location and they just sold it thinking that all it needed was a bigger tank. Was I correct in reading that it has killed 3 people in the last 20 years or so?
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I heard the same thing about the three people too.
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Thats' terrible. What a way to go.
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Wow! It's been years since I went to a Sea World, and I never would have dreamed anything like that would happen
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Sad, but still better than being maimed by a gay white tiger while wearing a codpiece.
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I have family in town and am going tommorow. This sad loss will be on my mind. I didn't tell my 5 year old as she wouldn't understand it wasn't her hero Shamu.
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That is really, really sad.

It's a shame to say, stuff like this does not surprise me. Whales are highly intelligent and they are used to swimming thousands of miles in the ocean. They get forced to perform and just like when a person snaps, an animal can as well.
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Working with large animals is inherently dangerous. People are killed in all lines of work.
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