Whales used to be one of my favorite sea animals until I heard the story about trainer Dawn Brancheau’s tragic death with her killer whale. On Wednesday afternoon, Dawn was working the “Dine with Shamu” event at Sea World with Telly, a 30-year-old 12,000 pound whale.
“[She] was laying on the platform, massaging the whale, petting it. All of a sudden, it latched on and took her under,” said a witness. “He came up one time out of the water with her in his mouth. That was the last we saw of her because they were running us out of there.” Alarms went off as an emergency crew tried to rescue Dawn.
How ironic… dine w/ Shamu?
Sad news for the whale because this is the third death that Telly has been involved in. Dawn Brancheau had been working with killer whales for sixteen years. I can’t imagine how many kids were traumatized in the event they witnessed that Wednesday.