A two-year-old boy was attacked and dragged away by an alligator at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort and Spa in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, on Tuesday night, according to the Orange County sheriff, who said a search for the toddler was ongoing.
The attack occurred at about 9:15pm on the beach area of the artificial Seven Seas Lagoon, Sheriff Jerry L Demings said at a news conference early yesterday morning. The boy was partly in the water at the edge of the lagoon with his mother, father and four-year-old sister when the alligator pulled him away, the sheriff said.
“The father entered the water and tried to grab the child, but was not successful in doing so,” Demings said.
He said the child’s mother might have also gone into the water to help. The father alerted a lifeguard, he said.
Fifty officers and two boats from Orlando-area law enforcement agencies were searching the lake and the grounds of the hotel, which is at Walt Disney World.
Demings said there was little hope the boy had survived.
“We are not likely now to find a live body,” he said.
The sheriff did not identify the victim or his family, who he said were from Nebraska and had been visiting since Sunday. He said there had been other witnesses to the attack.
The father suffered scratches on his hand from the encounter with the alligator, Demings said.
The sheriff’s office was working with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to find the child. The sheriff said the search involved boats with sonar equipment, an alligator trapper and a dive team on standby.
Demings said that no such attack had been recorded at the lagoon before and that no “nuisance alligators” had been reported in the area.
Alligators are common in lakes in central Florida, but attacks are relatively rare.
The area last year had its first reported fatal alligator attack since 2007. The body of a swimmer, James Okkerse, 61, of DeBary, Florida, was pulled from a lake in Volusia County, north of Orlando, and he was determined to have been attacked by a 3.66m-long alligator that was later shot and killed.
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