A guest at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort saw an alligator looming in the area where 2-year-old Lane Graves was playing. and she even sounded the alarm to someone at the hotel.
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Florida’s Orange County Sheriff’s Office tweeted a picture of Lane Graves, the young boy that died in the Disney gator attack.
In the hours after the attack, several guests told investigators they had seen an alligator on the beach close to where the movie was being shown. Tourist Alfred Smith said he photographed the alligator from his hotel room balcony about an hour and a half before the attack.
Shawna Giacomini, a tourist from North Carolina, told investigators in a sworn statement that she was on the beach at about 7:15 p.m. on June 14 with her two daughters when the children saw an alligator in the marsh about 5 feet from shore. The eldest daughter told a Disney cast member about it, and that employee went to inform another cast member.
In the reports, officials said Lane and his father were on the wet sand of the beach in ankle-deep or less water building a sand castle when the alligator bit Lane’s head and pulled him into the water. The Giacominis went to a nearby store and when they returned the boy had been attacked, according to the wildlife agency’s report.
“I saw it come out to get him”, Matt told authorities, adding that he put his hands in the gator’s mouth in an attempt to rescue Lane, but the eight-foot animal only struggled briefly before going under water.
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The report concluded that the incident was an unprovoked “predatory attack” and said that an investigation into alligator feeding activity – which has been blamed for the presence of alligators so close to resort guests – is ongoing. The alligator may have had a diminished fear of people by being in an area with lots of humans, and wildlife officials are still investigating if alligator feeding took place. Lane’s parents have said publicly they don’t plan to sue Walt Disney World over the death. Fishing at Disney World was changed to be limited only to excursions.
