Toddler’s Body Recovered After Alligator Attack At Disney World Resort

The body of a two-year-old boy who was grabbed by an alligator at a Walt Disney World resort in Orlando, Florida in the US has been recovered.

Lane Graves, from Elkhorn, Nebraska, was with his parents, Matt and Melissa Graves, on holiday, relaxing on the shore at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa in Lake Buena Vista near Orlando. However, at around 9pm on Tuesday, the boy played at the edge of the water at the Seven Seas Lagoon when suddenly, an alligator struck and grabbed the boy.

The Orange County Sheriff’s spokesman Jeff Williamson said that the boy’s father rushed into the water after the alligator got the boy and struggled to release his child from the alligator’s grip. The father suffered minor cuts on his arm in the struggle, while a lifeguard on duty also was unable to reach the boy in time. He said there are also no-swimming signs at the lagoon and the boy was only the one in the water at the time of the attack.

Law enforcement immediately began a search for the boy. Five alligators have already been caught in the lagoon and euthanised for analysis. Over 50 people, including experienced alligator trappers and sheriff’s department divers using sonar equipment, helicopters and boats searched the network of man-made canals, ponds and lakes to recover the boy’s body.

Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings confirmed that the boy’s body was found in the water about 3.30pm, local time, after more than 15 hours of searching the lagoon. He said the body was found “completely intact” near the attack site, leading authorities to believe the alligator drowned the toddler.

He told reporters the alligator was thought to be between 1.2 and 2 metres long.

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission executive director Nick Wiley said that the incident was “extremely rare” and that officers were doing everything they could to prevent another attack.

Jacquee Wahler, a vice president at Walt Disney World Resort said that Disney has now closed all resort beaches “out of an abundance of caution” until further notice. The Disney management also said that the park has a full-time team that monitors the complex.

“Everyone here at the Walt Disney Resort is devastated by this tragic accident. Our thoughts are with the family. We are helping the family and doing everything we can to assist law enforcement.”