"Attractive hazard" [Orlando Gator attack]

I'm just sayin' havin' two years olds snatched by gators at Disney (with no warning about gators at the "beach") is bad business.

Oh sure it is. But based on the number of 2 year olds who have stayed in that resort (probably millions) compared to the number who have been attacked by gators (1) I think we can conclude that Disney is a very, very safe place to stay.
 
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i gather this family had already paid admission into the resort?....

if so, Disney is going to get hosed over this.
 
Thank you (for all of your reasonable posts). There's a kneejerk reaction that sometimes goes on with liberty/personal responsibility peeps that gets taken to the absurd. There's a presumption that any and all warnings about anything are hand holding nanny state nonsense and/or due to our ridiculously litigious culture and a lot of people who are irresponsible, refusing to take responsibility for their own stupidity. This is not one of those cases.

I'm amazed that Disney, a multi billion dollar operation, that has to have teams of legal people, would put beaches and have parties next to alligator swamps, knowing that guests come from all over and might not know the risk. From what I've read, Disney is always removing alligators and a manager even suggested fencing because of the danger. Alligator attacks on humans are rare but luring people to where they breed and feed is just stupid. Gators, coming up out of the water, snatch critters from the shore all the time and and they can move fast. I was reading another thread, last night, at Democratic Underground, where a lot of people who live in gator country were posting. Several said that they never get near water at night which is mainly when gators feed.

Now, for further stupidity. I heard they're doing an autopsy on the little boy. I'm assuming that's some state regulation in the case of accidental death. What the hell is that supposed to prove and why add that unnecessary element? Puncture wounds or drowning would be the answer, obviously.

Yeah, that does seem like a bit of bureaucratic nonsense, but that's the least of my worries. Even for someone who is very libertacious (new word) and super-suspicious of lawsuits that require signs or such, think about having a friend over. Wouldn't you take the time to tell your friend about the danger involved if they were from far away and didn't know? Heck, if I were having someone over, I would suggest not even going near the pond, much less build a beach on it. That seems like a reasonable thing to expect from a friend. If you live in a place where there are alligators, these are things you have to be thinking about, and I wouldn't think it was too much to ask to warn your friends from out-of-state and even help check a swimming area for gators before allowing your friends to use it. If you know there are gators in a pond, I would alert the friends and warn them to stay well away from it. I think anyone you could call a friend would do that.
 
i gather this family had already paid admission into the resort?....

if so, Disney is going to get hosed over this.

It's one of their more upscale properties, so the family likely will retain a good lawyer.
 
Oh sure it is. But based on the number of 2 year olds who have stayed in that resort (probably millions) compared to the number who have been attacked by gators (1) I think we can say that Disney is a very, very safe place to stay.

I would agree with you. I've stayed there with toddlers (who somehow managed to survive this long with me as a mother:)) but it only takes one horrific accident to ruin a reputation. If I owned that place, I'd put a warning about gators on the sign. Hell, I remember eating at a shit hole restaurant with a playground on the beach in Mobile, Al and they had a warning sign about gators.

I understand gator attacks are rare BUT your (and especially a two year old's) chance of survival are slim. I just think a reminder would be the right thing to do.
 
Gators do not tend to hang out on land. There were no swimming signs at the resort.

The libertarian solution means the gator eats. Sorry....

Heck, it would've been better if they DID hang out on land. At least people would've seen them, then. The fact that they don't tend to hang out on land just makes it a more compelling reason to warn guests from far away about the dangers of going near the water. Even if the kid wasn't in the water, right on the edge, the gators could've easily come up and snatched him and been gone before anybody knew it.

The "libertarian" solution is to be a friend and tell people about the dangers on your property. I've explained this before. You don't build a beach on a pond and then host a party without ever thinking to tell people that there are gators in there. Are the "No swimming" signs sufficient? Hell no, nooooo. NO WAY. Not even close. Don't even think for a second that that logic is going to absolve you of responsibility when your friend gets eaten by an alligator. If I were on that panel and you were the one arguing that you shouldn't have been required to tell your friends about the gators in the pond you were having a party on, I would have no mercy on your ass.
 
Yeah, that does seem like a bit of bureaucratic nonsense, but that's the least of my worries. Even for someone who is very libertacious (new word) and super-suspicious of lawsuits that require signs or such, think about having a friend over. Wouldn't you take the time to tell your friend about the danger involved if they were from far away and didn't know? Heck, if I were having someone over, I would suggest not even going near the pond, much less build a beach on it. That seems like a reasonable thing to expect from a friend. If you live in a place where there are alligators, these are things you have to be thinking about, and I wouldn't think it was too much to ask to warn your friends from out-of-state and even help check a swimming area for gators before allowing your friends to use it. If you know there are gators in a pond, I would alert the friends and warn them to stay well away from it. I think anyone you could call a friend would do that.

I have a pool and keep an extra eye on little kids when they're over - even when mom and/or dad are in the water with them. I know how fast an accident can happen with little kids. My youngest almost drown with me right next to him - he was in one of those baby floats and it flipped over.:( To this day it scares me to see people put their babies in those things.
 
ban florida.

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"It happened in slow motion," he recalled. "The alligator came out of the water kind of sideways, swinging its head."

It's been 30 years, but the terror Santamaria felt at 8 years old is frozen in time

"I just remember how slow it seemed to be happening, I didn't feel any pain from it," he continued.

Santamaria says he was feeding the ducks at Disney's Fort Wilderness campground lake when an alligator erupted from the water's edge.

"It turned its head sideways and grabbed my leg. From there, it started to thrash me around, pull on me, and try to get me into the water."

He says his sister grabbed his arms while his brother hit the 7-foot female gator. The intense, violent tug of war ended when the alligator opened her mouth and let go.

"I was lucky enough to get away, but it's just a bad situation," he continued.

Santamaria was hospitalized for a week. The gator's tooth was pulled from his thigh where it barely missed his femoral artery.

Thirty years later, the scars remain.

"For a long time as a little kid, I didn't sleep in my own room; I didn't like water."

So when Santamaria learned of another alligator attack -- on a toddler at the Grand Floridian Resort just across the water from Fort Wilderness -- he was heartsick and angry when he heard authorities say, "Disney has operated here now for 45 years and they've never had this type of thing happen before."

"It happened to me, 30 years ago," he said. "It was disheartening to hear."

http://www.fox13news.com/news/u-s-and-world-news/160527741-story


That one incident should have been all it took for Disney to warn visitors. Even if you're just talking from a business perspective and don't give a damn if someone is bitten or killed, common freaking sense says you warn people. That's so simple. They obviously chose not to and the chances are high they didn't want to draw attention to something that might make people decide not to come back.
 
That one incident should have been all it took for Disney to warn visitors. Even if you're just talking from a business perspective and don't give a damn if someone is bitten or killed, common freaking sense says you warn people. That's so simple. They obviously chose not to and the chances are high they didn't want to draw attention to something that might make people decide not to come back.

This'll be the last one, then you guys can continue your freakout in peace.

How come you're not posting this very thing about the amoeba-related death I mentioned earlier? No signs for that? I don't think that person's any less dead. If the kid had died from that, would you be precisely this outraged?

You don't actually need to answer, but it'd be nice if you thought about it.

G'night
 
This'll be the last one, then you guys can continue your freakout in peace.

How come you're not posting this very thing about the amoeba-related death I mentioned earlier? No signs for that? I don't think that person's any less dead. If the kid had died from that, would you be precisely this outraged?

You don't actually need to answer, but it'd be nice if you thought about it.

G'night

No swimming sign. Dontcha have to get in the water for that? You don't have to be in the water to be snatched by a gator.
 
This'll be the last one, then you guys can continue your freakout in peace.

How come you're not posting this very thing about the amoeba-related death I mentioned earlier? No signs for that? I don't think that person's any less dead. If the kid had died from that, would you be precisely this outraged?

You don't actually need to answer, but it'd be nice if you thought about it.

G'night

G'night, babes. ~hugs~ :)
 
My previous posts regarding other hazards (without warning signs up) relate to this. You're overreacting. Insanely. It's tragic this child is dead, and it's no one's fault. You're screeching that Disney (because it has money) should have posted "Warning: Alligators" signs around the lake that's used for fireworks and boat shows. This family is from Nebraska, and many have pointed out they have no idea about alligators. Why is it your assertion that kind of sign would have stopped them from wading in the water? If they know enough about alligators to realize there's a danger, then they don't need the sign.

That is a ludicrous assertion. What are you even talking about? If they know enough about alligators to realize there's a danger, which almost everyone does, then that's all the more reason to think the signs WOULD help, not the other way around. Most people know alligators are dangerous but they just don't know where alligators are found. So if you tell them that they are in the water at the beach, that doesn't lead you to the conclusion that they would ignore the signs. In fact, that leads you to the exact opposite conclusion, that if you tell them that there are alligators here, they will realize alligators are dangerous and be more cautious. Heck, that's probably why Disney didn't tell anyone. They didn't want to scare people and ruin the party.

They have found five alligators in a really huge area, during mating/nesting season. That's actually surprisingly few, which speaks to their wildlife spotters doing a pretty good job overall. They're looking for evidence that one of the ones killed is the offender because if none of them is, then there is 100% for certain another alligator out there, and they need to keep looking. I'm not sure what's hard to understand about that.

Yeah, that seems reasonable, but it's a bit irrelevant to the liability issue.

There are a million and one acts of God and forces of nature that can kill you at any given place. There's no room for signage about all of them, many of which are still way more dangerous than alligators.

This all goes back to the doctrine of reasonable expectation. You can't just wave your hand and say "The world is a dangerous place! Get used to it, ya crybabies!" If you were a friend and you had someone over from out of state to your property with a pond, would you not want them to know about the gators? Would you hold a party on the beach of said pond and not make sure everyone knew there were gators? Would you assume that no swimming signs meant everyone should know it's because of gators and that you don't have to be swimming for a gator to attack you? Jesus, the thick-headedness of some people.

Mind you, most people agree with you, which is why there are signs and warnings on things that simply don't make sense. There can't just be a rip current sign; there has to be an entire essay on what riptides are and how to survive them. You even have warnings based on urban legends and misunderstandings "just in case." Disney will very likely get sued, and they'll put up an eight-foot barrier in that area, and also anywhere along the shore (even where other shows take place). Then they will have to put "do not climb this barrier" signs everywhere, in multiple languages.

There certainly are ridiculous litigations having to do with signs, but that doesn't mean you should just belay all signs and say they're all just for nanny-staters. I think I've made it clear that there was a reasonable expectation for Disney to warn its guests. Everything about this expectation is reasonable. Disney gets guests from all over the world, so it's reasonable to expect that some people don't know about the commonality of alligators in Florida. At the same time, it's reasonable to expect them to know what alligators are and that they are dangerous. It's also very reasonable to expect a host in said alligator-infested location to be wary of their less conscious guests and tell them out of sheer humanity to watch out for alligators because they are dangerous. If I was a friend, that's what I would do for guests on my property. This is made not only a reasonable expectation but downright compulsory when you build a damn beach on a pond on your property which you know has alligators in it, hold a party on that beach and you STILL don't tell anyone. It is absurd to think the property owner wouldn't be the least bit negligent and that this is nobody's fault and shit just happens. Fucking ridiculous, you people.

The heart of the matter for you is how much money they have. The person whose home Suz was staying at did not have a sign, yet there were dangerous gators in the area. You don't seem as angry about that.

Because Suz isn't having guests from all over the world and can easily warn anyone who comes to her property, whom she probably knows personally, to watch out for alligators without needing a sign. A warning in this instance, where there were many visitors to whom the inviting host was not familiar and could not greet individually and tell them, would therefore take on a more crowd-oriented appearance, such as signs or an announcement on a loudspeaker or something like that. Not to mention Suz just mentioned that her brother DID warn her of the gators. So, checkmate on that one.

This is why I mentioned storms and snow. I might also easily have mentioned lightning, which kills/injures A LOT of people in Florida each year, and is way more prone to strike during certain activities. They are natural occurrences that the people who live around them get used to, just like gators are here. Someone coming to your area is not used to those occurrences, and could get injured/killed. It doesn't mean it's their fault for not knowing, but it's certainly not your fault for not thinking to educate them on something that is super common in the area.

Did you really just compare lightning to alligators? Lightning is common everywhere in the world. Literally everywhere. Alligators, not so much. Also, lightning is much less predictable and you have zero chance of reacting a lightning shows itself. That's deliberately incorrect language because I'm emphasizing the fact that alligators are things that you can see coming. They are not immaterial and unpredictable. They can be seen, tracked, known about. They don't strike from the sky at 163,000 miles per second without a moment's notice. You are really reaching into the absurd to pull out these lame excuses as to why we should all just toughen up and stop being a bunch of crybabies who expect people to nanny us. No, we just expect people to be friends towards those who visit their property, because that's what any rational-thinking friend would do.
 
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My previous posts regarding other hazards (without warning signs up) relate to this. You're overreacting. Insanely. It's tragic this child is dead, and it's no one's fault. You're screeching that Disney (because it has money) should have posted "Warning: Alligators" signs around the lake that's used for fireworks and boat shows. This family is from Nebraska, and many have pointed out they have no idea about alligators. Why is it your assertion that kind of sign would have stopped them from wading in the water? If they know enough about alligators to realize there's a danger, then they don't need the sign.

They have found five alligators in a really huge area, during mating/nesting season. That's actually surprisingly few, which speaks to their wildlife spotters doing a pretty good job overall. They're looking for evidence that one of the ones killed is the offender because if none of them is, then there is 100% for certain another alligator out there, and they need to keep looking. I'm not sure what's hard to understand about that.

There are a million and one acts of God and forces of nature that can kill you at any given place. There's no room for signage about all of them, many of which are still way more dangerous than alligators.

Mind you, most people agree with you, which is why there are signs and warnings on things that simply don't make sense. There can't just be a rip current sign; there has to be an entire essay on what riptides are and how to survive them. You even have warnings based on urban legends and misunderstandings "just in case." Disney will very likely get sued, and they'll put up an eight-foot barrier in that area, and also anywhere along the shore (even where other shows take place). Then they will have to put "do not climb this barrier" signs everywhere, in multiple languages.

The heart of the matter for you is how much money they have. The person whose home Suz was staying at did not have a sign, yet there were dangerous gators in the area. You don't seem as angry about that.





This is why I mentioned storms and snow. I might also easily have mentioned lightning, which kills/injures A LOT of people in Florida each year, and is way more prone to strike during certain activities. They are natural occurrences that the people who live around them get used to, just like gators are here. Someone coming to your area is not used to those occurrences, and could get injured/killed. It doesn't mean it's their fault for not knowing, but it's certainly not your fault for not thinking to educate them on something that is super common in the area.

My brother's house and he actually DID warn me about the gators but I was too busy spying on his neighbors.:o
 
Oh sure it is. But based on the number of 2 year olds who have stayed in that resort (probably millions) compared to the number who have been attacked by gators (1) I think we can conclude that Disney is a very, very safe place to stay.

They've definitely knocked their safety rating down a notch with this trick. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this was the first time they did this particular kind of event, and that being the case, they've proven themselves to be less competent at managing such events than we previously thought, thereby tarnishing their overall competency and safety reputation.
 
This'll be the last one, then you guys can continue your freakout in peace.

How come you're not posting this very thing about the amoeba-related death I mentioned earlier? No signs for that? I don't think that person's any less dead. If the kid had died from that, would you be precisely this outraged?

You don't actually need to answer, but it'd be nice if you thought about it.

G'night

Remind me never to come to your property if we ever become friends. Which probably isn't going to happen since I know you are incapable of acting like a friend.

We're both from WV, and I don't know about your experiences, but it has always been very common for people to warn visitors on their property about possible wildlife that might be lurking around, especially if it's something unusual, like bears or panthers. (No, it's true, there were two panthers known to dwell in the woods around our house when we were young.) Some things may be very rare, but it usually pops into a friend's mind to warn them about the things they should be most concerned about that are common in that area but might not be common in other areas, especially if they might be lethal. It doesn't require the threat of a lawsuit for a friend to warn people, so is it too much to ask for Disney to act like any friend would and give its visitors a simple warning?
 
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Yeah, that does seem like a bit of bureaucratic nonsense, but that's the least of my worries. Even for someone who is very libertacious (new word) and super-suspicious of lawsuits that require signs or such, think about having a friend over. Wouldn't you take the time to tell your friend about the danger involved if they were from far away and didn't know? Heck, if I were having someone over, I would suggest not even going near the pond, much less build a beach on it. That seems like a reasonable thing to expect from a friend. If you live in a place where there are alligators, these are things you have to be thinking about, and I wouldn't think it was too much to ask to warn your friends from out-of-state and even help check a swimming area for gators before allowing your friends to use it. If you know there are gators in a pond, I would alert the friends and warn them to stay well away from it. I think anyone you could call a friend would do that.

Well, yes, what you're talking about (a very different situation from a resort and it's special responsibilities and liabilities) is just basic human thoughtfulness which also seems to escape some people around here. Of course, I'd warn someone about alligators in my pond and I sure as hell wouldn't haul in sand, build a nice little beach, put out chairs to entice them, blissfully unaware, to said pond. The more we talk about this the more insane it seems.
 
You would have needed the father to be the one with the weapon, draw it fast enough, and then find a lethal shot on a gator moving full-tilt through splashing water with a child in its jaws.

In my earlier example, people are invited to enjoy the beach. The number of hazard signs it would require to cover all of the potentially deadly things that could happen would not allow you to see the water, let alone get in it.

PaulConventionWV keeps calling it "alligator-infested" even though there were five caught in that entire area and the last bite happened in the early 80s. Doesn't exactly seem infested.

Again, I don't think signs are going to fix their problems. They should go with the eight-foot barrier that will keep gators away (and upon which people will climb, walk, burn themselves, cut themselves, and fall drunkenly from). It looks like those islands I mentioned in another post already exist, so the gators can sun themselves without needing to venture near the various beach areas. This will solve the issue until a snake bites someone, who will immediately say that they had no idea there could be snakes in Florida.

I don't expect any two year olds will be getting drunk and climbing your proposed fence. :rolleyes: If I had a toddler and there was not a gator sign I might have let him wade on the beach in one foot of water even if the sign said "No swimming." The sign didn't say "No wading" so I might not have thought we were in any danger. And snakes typically try to get away from you. If there were snakes known to hunt people in Florida then that would probably be a good idea for a sign as well. Really this is a silly argument. If there was no need for a gator sign then there was no need for a "no swimming sign." Hell, Disney should just say "Come to this park at your own risk. We really hope you don't die." They gave the impression that they were a family safe theme park. If what people should know is "This is the equivalent of the Australian outback and your kids might look like snack food to hungry gators" then fine. Disney should say that in its advertising or relocate its theme parks to places like Nebraska.
 
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